resolved in children.

Someone asked me recently about the tattoo on my right bicep, artwork that depicts Lily's footprint at birth encircled by cursive text.  The writing is the final two sentences of lyrics from a defunct, but forever favorite band of mine from Baltimore, the oft overlooked and most certainly underappreciated (not by me...to a fault, perhaps) Lungfish.  I've written of them before and spoken of them ad nauseam.

Yes, I know that band lyric tattoos have become a modern day cliche but this world as inhabited by humans, frankly, is a magnificent bundle of such things and she who is without guilt, well, you know what to do.

Digression.  As the years pass, the words of Creation Story mean more not less to me.  Like any well-written lyrics, the words are widely open to interpretation, to bending, to repurposing as fits the listener.  This song continues to help tell the story of civilization as I believe it to have been, its evolution and regression throughout the millenia, while helping to explain and express the teensy part I feel I play in its current production.  With each passing day, I find more truth in the song, more connections and even closer connection to "now".

I will share the lyrics and a link (from the title) to the song.  Know that it is poem, more than song, but filled with rhythm and music that earns it, in my eyes, the title of song.

You may read or not, listen or not, but know that when you cross my path, be it on the trail, in the workplace or on city streets, these very words dance behind my eyes and interweave around the voices and sounds I hear, the images that I see, and help to filter my processing of those messages and instruct my responses.

Songs are rarely written expressly for any one listener, but the best of them seem to be uniquely adapted for every listener.

Resolved in Lily Harper and Piper Bea I shall live.

-----------------------------------

Creation Story by Lungfish (lyrics by Daniel Higgs)

Paranoia warped into a gravity.

Which spread a smothering blanket on an evolutionary launch pad.

Vision was tested on blank sky and voice said, "Let me tell you about the time that something occurred."

Medication caused an ear to hear and a conflict of interpretation arose.

Landscapes were drawn from a plague of particles, and the burden was distributed.

The law would return as inflated skins.

While music initiated architecture.

Animals, living through a velocity of fear began to modify their behavior to comply with human observation.

Thus dropping a keystone into the eggshell honeycomb of anthrocentric history since.

As for the plants, they had been with the music.

Science procured a steepled shell dressed for immortality, hollow to hold the music.

Emotion repelled all opinion and refused to consider it's origin.

Apples happened bringing acids and enzymes, the spinning recorder disguised as an endless bouquet.

Things became erotic at the drop of a hat.

A tyrant placed an apple on a table and lorded over it.

As a fish realized it held a monkey inside itself and expelled it on the beach in a larval salamander form.

The voters clamored for more circles and the whole rig began to rotate.

Books were used for fuel and money and everybody was writing them.

The planets turned inside out to expose their freight.

No charges were pressed because all involved agreed that they could die.

These are secrets a world sung to me truer than the truth.

A young order of birds that eats the eyes of believers.

Science predicted forms of worship and reveled in them.

An orgy of mutation took place for many years.

Between stones, near water, and inside clouds.

The people bound their feet with the skins of the animals to trample their own cities and each other.

They developed external organs like guns and television sets.

They believed that they owned things.

One mind in a generation will hear the eternal broadcast of the voice saying, "Let me tell you about the time that something occurred."

And that mind's body will be strapped down and that body's mind will subject to testing or electric currents rippled through the brain.

But the music pervades.

It was music that gave the shove.

And resolved in music we shall breathe.

It was children that crafted a parent.

And resolved in children we shall live.

from here to new jersey.

Lily is quite the stickler for properly situating a bookmark before we cease our reading each evening.  If I forget this step and dare leave the book unmarked, she chastises me sternly.

Rightfully so, she wants to cover new ground when we settle in the following night.  There isn't time in her young life, I suppose, for backtracking.

Sooner or later, she's going to start cracking open my books and I'm afraid they're going to drive her crazy, as I fold down the corner of any and every page that contains a paragraph of interest, an eye-catching photo or even just a single stunning sentence.  For me, these marks aren't intended to denote stopping points from which to begin again, but, rather, as places to which I'd like to return and linger.

Having put Lil to bed the other evening after receiving yet another scolding (I'm forgetful, you see), I revisited my own shelves and pulled down a few random books to see what I'd find.  Pressed leaves tumbled off of or clung courageously to many pages, revealing another obsession for which I'll likely have to explain myself once the girls start greater exploration into my library.  A couple of stray feathers hid there too and I resolved to make certain that Lily and Piper both got a peek at these artifacts before they are damaged or lost entirely.

On some pages I couldn't determine exactly what it was that had led to the original folding of the corner, but even this was a warm reminder of why revisiting beloved books with the always changing perspective of "real" life brings rekindled appreciation and new revelations.

I'd read From Here to Eternity by James Jones years and years ago, so long ago, in fact, I was somewhat surprised to find that I'd done anything more than store pretty leaves within its pages.  I do not remember much about the book, sadly, but a 20-something me had found reason to call out a specific passage that has taken on new meaning with the tests of ultra running.  The following words were especially timely from the vantage point of my experiences at this past weekend's Febapple Frozen 50, a 50-mile race that I was blessed to complete despite the fact that more than half of the starters failed to finish due to treacherous footing and hypothermia-inducing weather conditions:

“He knew how to handle pain. You had to lie down with pain, not draw back away from it. You let yourself sort of move around the outside edge of pain like with cold water until you finally got up your nerve to take yourself in hand. Then you took a deep breath and dove in and let yourself sink down it clear to the bottom. And after you had been down inside pain a while you found that like with cold water it was not nearly as cold as you had thought it was when your muscles were cringing themselves away from the outside edge of it as you moved around it trying to get up your nerve. He knew pain.”

My interests all prove wedded in the end.  The music that speaks to me, the words that move me, the movement that sings to me all overlap and intertwine until I can't distinguish one from the other.  And I adore that.

I think little of graves or tombstones.  Infrequently do I ponder how I'd like to be remembered.  But, should my family decide it imperative that a marker be erected in my memory upon my slipping from this earth, I think I could live (ha!) with

"He knew how to handle pain."

Better yet, save the real estate and whatever materials were to be used for the marker and fold a corner or two in my honor when something strikes you as worthy of a return visit.

gone workin'.

Little time for writing at the present, sadly, as January and February always mark the busiest of seasons in my work year, a juggling act of deadlines and demands.  It all pays off as said deadlines are met (somehow) and said demands diminish with each accomplished task.

Free time is limited and devoted solely to running and sleeping, restorative activities that keep frazzled from evolving into fried.  If I lose the thread of what I'm working on to chase words and build sentences of my own, I just prolong the work process that keeps me from being able to get fully lost in my own creative pursuits. 

So, instead, like Dory in Finding Nemo (as I was reminded by a friend just a run or two ago), I "just keep swimming, just keep swimming", knowing that I'll eventually get where I'm going.  (Listen, if you're saying to yourself right now something along the lines of "Finding Nemo, seriously", you either aren't a parent or, well anyway, trust me you're missing out on one heckuva running mantra by not having watched at least that scene.)

While swimming headphones and music are a nice distraction, however, though even these can get me off track, at least for a moment or two of reflection.  Not that I'm complaining.

"These are secrets a world sung to me truer than the truth."

Can the album Rainbows from Atoms really be 20 years old?  Of course it can.  Anyway, for the uninitiated, Lungfish's Creation Story hardly qualifies as a song and is certainly not representative of the band's full body of work, but it is as fine a collection of words as you could hope to hear in just 3 and a half minutes and, though cryptic, the sentiments of those words are just as timely as they were 2 decades (gasp) ago.

Every single waking day something makes me think of a line or two or ten from this lovely poem.  And, yes, the closing comment is the text that surrounds Lily's newborn footprint on my upper right arm just below her drawing of she and her sister at play that a friend transferred with care to make it apparent that it originated, and could only have originated, from an earnest child's crayon and imagination.

"It was children that crafted a parent and resolved in children we shall live."

Indeed.

And with Spring looming, as predicted or otherwise, there's soon more adventuring to be done and time to be spent NOT in the office.  Together.

To that end and while Lily and Piper sleep blissfully, I must hit "publish" and return to the swimming at hand...with a little daydreaming mixed in for good measure.

but the music pervades.

The kids had nabbed my phone, their two little heads fighting for best position as they huddled around the 2" x 3" screen.  I knew what they were up to immediately.

I don't have any games loaded onto my phone, but I do use the maddening little device to snap photos and handily capture the movements of my children that I want so desperately to be able to view whenever the mood strikes.

As it often does.

The girls too like to revisit their adventures, the mysterious sounds of chirping voices that they refuse to believe as their own.  I know just how they feel.  To hear your own mutterings cast back from a recorder instead of filtered solely through your own skull is to know distortion.  Lily and Piper are truly mystified by this disconnection and I, after nearly 4 decades of pondering, still often wonder what I "really" sound like.

And so they giggled as they replayed over and over a short clip of the two of them darting about a nearby park earlier in the year.

I asked them, for the thousandth time, if they enjoyed running and they dutifully recited the "yes" that they expect I want to hear.

Later Lily asked me, also for the thousandth time, why I like to run so much and I stumbled through the clumsy responses that I have offered her before but that always fall short of fully conveying ALL of my reasons and by doing so fail to actually answer the question.  

Regardless, I know Lily doesn't actually doubt that I love running, instead, as with everything she encounters, she simply seeks a thorough explanation and a deeper comprehension.

Her follow up question was a puzzling beauty.

"Daddy, what does if FEEL like to run so much?"

There are so many words in our confounding language and endless, truly endless, combinations in which those words can be positioned, making it that much more aggravating to be unable to select the right words and/or juggle them into the appropriate order to properly express something you know so intimately.

I tried.  I really did.  But, the knit brow and pursed lips were giveaways that Lily hadn't been brought any closer to understanding.

And then I heard the answer.

And that answer answered another lingering question.

Music.

Our entire household is captivated by the music of Iceland's Sigur Ros.  Their music had helped me make sense of my existence, or at least cope with not being able to make sense of my existence, through my father's accident and eventual death as well as the subsequent slow dissolve of my first marriage.  Years later, a recording of the band had served as musical accompaniment as Lindsay progressed down the aisle to an anxious-to-marry-her me.  The odd soundscapes have proven for me to be the only lullabies capable of delivering restful sleep on long continental flights.

The music infiltrates, brings tears, cleanses and in the end elicits smiles, even inexplicable but welcome laughter.

And late in long runs, certainly in the final hours and minutes of races that have truly tested my endurance, I hear this music.

I FEEL it.

As do my daughters.

Learning that by closing her eyes and REALLY listening to the notes of Olsen Olsen she could experience what it feels like to run so much, Lily unfurrowed her brow and a smile spread across her face.  She even flushed a bit.

She felt it.

She's loved Sigur Ros from the first time that we played them for her, but she's always asked why we like it.  The dilemma is that there aren't words to explain why, only feelings, only emotional reactions not describable, not really, in words.

There is just the music.

And there is movement.

Euphoria.

Joy. 

The same joy that I experience while watching my girls run.  And smile, And laugh.

And be.

once you get started you can't sit down.

Staring out the window at mid-day and taking in the rare sight (this year) of snowflakes falling with conviction, I knew I needed to find a way to sneak in a run.  Never mind the fact that the temperatures hovered just above freezing and it seemed unlikely that accumulation would amount to much.

No matter.

Snow was hard to come by and I was going to get out in it.

It wouldn't happen then, not with work stacked figuratively and, judging by the state of my desk, also literally to the ceiling.  I made a call to Lindsay to confirm her schedule for the rest of the day and allowed the dangling carrot of a night run to keep me hopping along happily until quitting time.

A few hours later I had several hundred acres of private and public land all to my lonesome.  The snow had continued to fall and the mercury had dipped enough to allow something close to an inch to pile up.  At slightly higher elevations, as much as two inches clung to the trees and added surprising visibility even with the nearly full moon mostly obscured by clouds.

I'd half-heartedly sent out an online invite to the "tribe" but wasn't disappointed to be on my own in the pristine conditions.  As is often the case when I run alone at night, I settled into a slightly slower than usual pace with the intent of maintaining that pace all night long.  Pulling a Lionel is what I've taken to calling that and it never fails to make me grin a stupid grin before I cringe slightly at the fact that I'm finding myself funny.

Still, the grin is genuine.

I crossed above Hammer Creek on Route 322 and hooked a quick left onto the Horseshoe Trail, pleased to find not a single set of tracks before me.  I hung another left and dug into the steep, rocky climb that peels up and away from the Horseshoe Trail.  The legs felt fresh and I soon topped out, crossed the power line and headed into the wooded state game lands on the other side.  Before long I took yet another left and followed the long descent that eventually returns to the banks of Hammer Creek and leads to the intersection with the Sharp Valley Trail, my first right turn of the run.

The snow served up a lovely, crisp lullaby underfoot and I marveled at the stillness and silence of everything else but the murmured chattering of the creek.  A far off train whistle, probably originating from the same train and tracks that called to me through the bedtime window of my childhood, just barely made itself heard above my footfalls.

Sharp Valley eventually led to the Big Timber Trail and after clambering up a rocky ascent, I found myself on the old logging road that skims Camp Mack and climbs its way back toward the Horseshoe Trail.  Before getting that high, I turned right onto the Explorer Lodge trail/road and followed it all the way back to the point where I'd first strayed from the Horseshoe Trail.

Feeling exceptionally at ease in the woods and still full of energy, I decided against returning to the car and instead began climbing up, up the Horseshoe Trail to Eagle Rock, headed east from there along the ridgeline and then came all the way back down the logging road again to the Big Timber Trail and retraced (in reverse) some of my earliest miles.

Somewhere along the way, I glanced down at my Garmin and realized that the clock had struck midnight.  At that same moment, I realized that it was now February 9th, the day that would've been my father's 60th birthday.

That hadn't crossed my mind at all, at least not consciously, before that very moment and its arrival jolted me out of my dreamy state.

I'd covered more than 10 miles by the time I arrived back at the car and had held my pace throughout, but the remaining turns and trails chosen after realizing the date had blurred and failed to register.  My head never quite settled back into its earlier peaceful state.

Instead, I pondered what it would be like to playfully give Dad a hard time about being an old man but discovered that I couldn't actually conjure up a vision of that happening.  There are photographs to remind me of how my father looked and, though I don't go out of my way to visit the mirror, it's hard not to see at least a bit of him when I cross one's path.

But in my mind, and I can't even begin to express how disappointing I find this, he often lurks as the 49-year old man in a coma that I visited every day for the last 5 months of his life.

You have a lot of time to look, really look, at someone when they lie prone and motionless for days, weeks and months on end.  You look as close as you should've looked all along but, sadly, you no longer have the opportunity to see anything more than the cold exterior shell and it really drives home how much life and beauty lives in gesture and movement, in the magical whatever-it-is that eyes are able to convey.

I looked too late to fully appreciate the magic.

The flicker of that magic in photographs is a poor reproduction of what is no more.  There's a reason that live shows transcend studio recordings and I'll take raw vulnerability over doctored perfection any and every day.

But, sticking with the music analogy, we don't get to see every band play live that we'd like to.  Even those acts that we were privileged enough to see perform aren't waiting in the wings for us to call them out for an encore.

Poor reproduction or not, recordings do still contain magic, however, and, if nothing else, they retain the ability to transport us back to those first listens, chill-inducing concerts or moments that became indelibly connected to specific notes or musical passages.

I love that about records.

And, I love that about photographs.

Especially when it's all I've got left. 

Miss you, Pops.

like you've done before....

I haven't run with my iPod in a long time and expect I won't anytime soon.

Got nothing against it in practice, but the reality tends to get me in trouble, coaxing me to an unrealistic pace in one instance and lulling me into too slow an amble in another.  Worse yet, it drowns out the birdsing, leafrustle, windwhistle and other ambient soundscapes that make the outdoors so irresistably inviting in the first place.

Music is already playing and running with headphones is liking arriving at the dance club only to pop in soundproof earplugs.

Drowns out the rhythm.

And even on days like today when circumstance makes running on the road a necessary evil and the provided sounds are anything but appealing, my jukebox of a brain always manages to serve up an interesting record.

Here's what a mental quarter bought me today as I dodged traffic and pounded away in the freezing rain, icy fog and puddles of slush:

Can't wait to lace up the sneaks tomorrow, hit shuffle and see where the music takes me next.