CAND HANNON

Cand Hannon IPA by Iron Horse Brewery.

12 ounce can in Lagunitas glass.

6.8% abv.

—

The pour is a clear yellow-orange body, with a thin white ring of head.

The nose is citrus, tropical fruit, fresh-pressed leaves of herbs, and biscuits.

The tongue is citrus bitterness, orange peel, tangerine, and biscuity malts, with hints of papaya and mango.

The mouthfeel is medium to medium-heavy. (It sits a bit heavier in the mouth than most IPAs.)

This is really good—a nice balance of hops and malts.

I could just keep drinking this.

(Iron Horse is brewing some of my new favorite beers!)

RUNNING for MY LIFE

Tonight was my first solo run. Today was a rest day in The Child's training schedule, but I needed to get out and run. (Which reads weird as a type it. And then sounds even weirder when I read it aloud to myself.)

The constraint I set for myself was distance. I knew where I was going to run to and then where I was going to return. It was slightly beyond where we've run other training runs on the Riverwalk. I wasn't worried about a time constraint. I got to set the pace. I thought I was going to die the entire time.

Time = 14:03. Distance = 1.38 miles.

It seems that it's a lot easier to bark orders and encouragement at someone else, to help them with their training, than it is to bark the same at one's self. I thought, Wait, I can walk if I feel like my chest is going to explode. I'm out here on my own. Then I thought, No, I can't. I tell The Child to keep going. No walking. I've got to keep going. No walking. Holding myself accountable was much more difficult than holding someone else accountable. But I didn't walk.

I spent the last half of the run with multiple voices in my head arguing about the run. About just giving up and walking the rest. About not passing out. About slowing down my pace. About increasing my pace. About my breathing. About how my feet don't hurt. About how my thighs don't hurt. About how maybe someone will find my corpse at the side of the trail when I have my heart attack. About how maybe I should have taken a rest day. About just shut the voices down and run. About picking up the pace for the last section.

And then it was over.

I went and got The Dog and we walked for my cool down period. Halfway through our normal walk, I finally felt somewhat human again. And then the adrenaline rush arrived and I felt spent but good.

We finished our walk and then I stretched out my legs and back.

Tomorrow is another day.

---

The question I had to ask myself is Why am I running?

First, I'm genuinely running to support The Child. I suggested cross country and said I would run alongside and train if The Child participated. It's a time to bond and share something together.

Second, decades ago, I ran with my mother. So it's a way of connecting my past and present, one generation to another.

Third, it was prompted by some health concerns and the need to shift the way that I take care of myself, as well as partnered with changes in my diet.

Fourth, and ultimately, this feels like the next step in a process that started in those health concerns mentioned above. But the primary goal isn't for physical health reasons, but for those of mind and spirit. I've been enjoying my mindfulness walks so much (as has The Dog) that this felt like the next natural step. In addition to being outside, in nature, amongst the trees and flowers and birds, I get to be in conversation with myself, in prayer (in conversation with God), and in those conversations trying to figure things out. Some of those things are about my own mortality. Some of those things concern pieces I'm writing or art I'm creating. Some of those things are about simply being out and about and observant and engaged.

So, there are many reasons to run. But, essentially, it's simply the next step. (Pun intended.)

---

And it's also about learning.

One thing I quickly learned is that I needed proper shoes. The first couple of runs were in my Converse because that's what I had. I felt every step as I ran. It was like the soles of my feet were being pounded by the trail.

I did some research and purchased a pair of Asics Gel Venture 6. They were rated well on multiple running websites and were reasonably priced.

---

Now it's time to run some more. And learn some more.

THE ORCHARDS

Our first morning training run, which was near orchards in Yakima

Time = 10:17 minutes. Distance = .87 miles.

The Child ran the whole time. No walking! (She wanted to, but I talked her into running the entire time.)

YAKIMA SUNSET

This was the view on our training run tonight.

Running at sunset provided us with a spectacular sight, which helped to keep our minds on the beauty and off of the pain.

Time = 15:30. Distance = 1.3 miles.

It was a much better run for me. Part of that was having actual running shoes. The Child had calf and sole pain. We worked on a longer cool down period of walking, followed by stretches. More stretches are probably needed. It's a work in progress!

TRAINING RUN

This training run brought to you by the Puyallup Riverwalk Trail.

More time. Longer distance. Slower pace. More pain.

Time = 15:46. Distance = 1.28 miles.

The Child was having burning in her calves. The back of my right thigh was killing me throughout most of the run. It looks like we need to be more thorough with our pre-run stretches!

RUNNING

The Child is going to run cross country in the fall for high school. I've agreed to train alongside.

I haven't actively and consistently ran in three decades. We started tonight.

Baby steps!

+

The training goal tonight was 10 minutes. The Child set the pace.

In 10:06, we ran .87 miles. I thought I was going to die for most of it, but had a great endorphin rush when it was done. Tomorrow is 15 minutes.

IDIOT PSALMS

"a spark igniting / once again the tinder of our lately / banked noetic fire"

—from "Annunciation" by Scott Cairns, as found in Idiot Psalms 

---

I was first introduced to the poetry of Scott Cairns when I purchased a copy of Philokalia: New & Selected Poems in 2002. Initially, I picked up the book due to the icon of Saint Isaac of Syria on the cover. Then, I knew these poems were going home with me because of the series of poems titled "Adventures in New Testament Greek," which explore the terms metanoia, hairesis, nous, mysterion, and apocatastasis.

In Idiot Psalms, Cairns presents us poems in four main sections—"Unawares," "Heychasterion," My Byzantium," and "Erotic Word." Fourteen "Idiot Psalms" weave throughout the four sections, along with other poems, each with some sort of theological import while simultaneously lifting up the inadequacy of creation, the body, and our ability to comprehend the Divine. "The world remains a puzzle," as the narrator of "Heavenly City (Ouranoúpoli)" states.

A blurb on the back of the book claims that "Dostoyevsky and the psalmists" are "traveling companions" of Cairns. I've never read The Idiot, but I can see the inspiration of the psalms throughout, as well as many notions familiar from Christianity, Orthodox (for Cairns) and otherwise.

I've read all of the poems twice now and I am just starting to understand many of them. Maybe. It isn't due to them being difficult to read, but being challenged to see things differently, to think differently. To admit an inability to understand.

My favorite poem is "Annunciation." It takes a familiar scene—the angel Gabriel informing Mary that she will bear the Christ-child and provide for the birth and incarnation of God—and in eleven brief lines transforms it into something that vibrates with more energy than should be possible within its frame. We move from the clay of creation to the nativity of Christ, with Mary as our representative, as the very nature of our essence and our relationship to our Creator is revealed. This is powerful, revelatory work that Cairns does on the page.

I will be turning to, and returning to, these poems again and again.

A GOOD and HAPPY CHILD

A Good and Happy Child by Justin Evans has sat on one of the shelves of my home library for the past twelve years. I intended to read it upon purchase, but other books arrived and this novel of psychological horror fell farther down the reading list eventually being stabled on a bookcase and forgotten.

Which is too bad, because this is some top-notch scary stuff.

George Davies is a new father who cannot hold his infant son. His wife is at her wit's end. George visits a therapist in an attempt to save his marriage. Most of the narrative takes place as we read through a series of notebooks that the therapist challenges George to keep.

Eleven-year-old George Davies is an intellectually precocious kid dealing with the recent death of his father. When a demon visits George "all hell breaks loose." This is the same demon that supposedly killed his father.

Ultimately, we get different explanations for the presence of this demon—an actual demon that needs to be exorcised, command auditory hallucinations of a young mind in meltdown, or a child grieving the death of his father and his mind trying to make sense of it all—and the ramifications of trying to keep this demon at bay.

We meet various experts and authority figures trying to deal with George and his Friend—family members, church officials and practitioners, and psychologists, therapists, and medical personnel.

It's a compelling read and one that I found difficult to put down. And the ending... Oh. Dear. God.

Maybe I'll sleep with the lights on tonight. Highly recommended.

REVIVAL

Revival is Stephen King at his Lovecraftian best. King has many works that refer to, or play in, the realm of the Cthulhu Mythos. The first story I ever read by King, "Crouch End" in New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos (1980), is good Lovecraftian horror that marries King's voice with elements of the Mythos—and does so while never revealing too much of "the other realm" but enough to keep the "creepy factor" high. Revival reads in a similar vein.

Revival is aptly named, as the novel plays with the various denotations and connotations of the word. There is religious revival, restoration to life, and rising up from disease or drug addition.

All of the horror is contained within the story of two men—Jamie Morton and the Reverend Charlie Jacobs—who first meet when Jamie is six and Rev. Jacobs is the new pastor of the church Jamie attends. The book develops their characters well, revealing more of Jamie over the course of the novel, and visiting the various points throughout the years when Jamie and Rev. Jacobs meet up again.

Just as Lovecraft was good at peeling back the onion-like layers of the cosmos to reveal what lurks beneath, so does King. And King does such without worrying too much about the mechanics of some of the pieces that lie beneath. We don't need to know exactly how they function because (a) it doesn't ultimately matter to the story, and (b) it lends the novel a sense of mystery.

When the ending arrives, which I had been trying to figure out and anticipate throughout reading the novel, it was not quite what I expected, but was ultimately fulfilling. If the latter word is adequate to explain the cosmic horror that rises up and leaves the reader off-kilter!

One of my favorite King novels. Highly recommended.

BETTER DAYS

"Better Days." Found art. North Hill, Puyallup, Washington.