Caloden

When left alone with the sounds in my head for any length of time I am sometimes plagued with visions of grandiosity befitting a person with far more ambition and follow through than I possess. I know this about myself and therefore try to limit the spans of silence in which such plans can potentially hatch within my cranium. When they do materialize I know I should quickly open the back hatch, sweep them out and resign myself to simpler tasks such as sorting socks. But there are times. Times when an idea so perfect comes along that I shut that back door, clasp that hope close and declare myself on a noble path. All kids of wrong for sure, but optimistic nonetheless.

About seven weeks ago it dawned on me that nothing much would do in my life unless I run a half marathon in the next few months. This occurred to me for no better reason than the fact that I happen to be turning 40 in early September. It seems I must find meaning in this meaningless turn of the clock. Sure, my 30′s have been a challenge, really an ass kicker if you will. But in order to send them out with nobility I find I must hurl my curvy body through space for 13.2 miles to find order in it all. So. I have been training. I downloaded a training schedule, joined a couple of training sites and have been striving for consistency in said training. Part of that training is running small races along the way in order to experience the race…experience. My first race was good fun, the Susan G. Komen 5K. A good cause, lots of turn out, good shwagg. No room to go wrong. I finished in the middle of the pack and was pleased considering the altitude was close to 8000 feet. Then it was time to up the mileage and so last weekend I ran a local 4.2 mile race. It was pegged as an exclusively downhill gig. No worries. No fuss. There were 33 runners in my part of the run, the 14 milers started in a different spot and at an earlier time. I knew by the look of the pack that there were some fit contenders, some young folk and some runners much older than me. What I didn’t consider was the fact that out of 33 participants I would finish dead last. Behind the young ‘uns and the bad ass granny in front of me, the old hag who NEVER once stopped to walk.  I would have been more mortified but for the fact that my time, 42:59 for just a bit over four miles was a personal best for me. So I’m not sure what kind of steroidal breakfast those young teens and old farts had last Saturday but my time left me giddy and sore.

Tonight was the cross training part of my half marathon training schedule. I am a far better cyclist than runner and am actually able to log a fair number of miles on the bike. This is from one of my new favorite rides where I ride my butt off for a spell before hitting the summit and sailing downhill for about 12 miles. When I reach the top I always stop for a few minutes to say the following to nobody in particular: 1) Fuck yes, I am a bad ass who just rode all kinds of UP. And then to my father : Thank you, Dad, for giving me this love of cycling. For bringing us here to the mountains and teaching us to appreciate the beauty surrounding us.

Tonight the beauty was especially gorgeous as a storm blew over. Not only were the mountains particularly stunning, but I like to think there was all sorts of Jesus in them, what will all the extreme light and blustery clouds. A good night for a ride.

For quite some time I have been living in a hole of cold, dark panic. It could be attributed to a variety things, things such as my youngest child being diagnosed with a congenital heart defect, my marriage going down the tubes, my father going out for a bike ride and dying while crossing the street. Or there is also the possibility that I am just a neurotic freak, content to rock quietly in a corner while humming show tunes. The truth likely rests mostly  on the latter statement with some of the former points sprinkled in for interest. But the thing with being neurotic and prone to hiding indoors away from others is that after a spell, say 17 years or so, it grows dull and there comes a time for change. For me this change has been in a slow evolution over the last year or so, and with the onset of my fortieth birthday at the end of the summer I am stepping outside of my panic box to brush shoulders with the world. And? It’s kinda fun in a wow-this-is-super-scary-and-I-want-to-wear-gloves-and-a-helmet sort of way.

So what have I done lately? Well. I’ve submerged myself in cold mountain lake water and then attempted to hurl through it while tied to a rope. Scary stuff for somebody whose idea of water sports is the shallow end of my mother’s hot tub. The effort was completely unplanned, spontaneous in a way I simply am not.

Luckily my mother was there, yes at the age of 39 I spend a lot of time with my mother, to record it on camera. No, there are not actually pictures of me on the water, those moments were fleeting but they actually did happen. Starting at the top and traveling clockwise: The mistress of the boat, Jennifer, and my mother as we cruise to the middle of the lake. Jen’s son and Cassidy’s best friend, Taylor, as he readies to go out on the water. Cass and Devon watching Taylor, I love Cass’ profile and the fact that Devon looks like an albino monkey. Yes, that backdoor shot of my legs is courtesy of my mother. Why put it in? Because it is a testament to the fact that pale people should stay indoors in their corners and learn more showtunes, plus I love the way Jen is modeling the technique I should use to prop myself up on the knee board. Then there is Richard’s lower half as he effortlessly surfs behind the boat, He is the Master of the vessel and mate to Jen. And finally Jen is modeling, again, how I should grasp the rope as I let myself out to surf. Good thing I know how to swim.

But my most favorite shot of all is this one, Cass and me after I have been hurled off the back side of the boat and she reassures me that I am not a bumbling idiot, just an uncoordinated one.Good times.

Untitled from Heather Craven on Vimeo.

Today I had the great honor of watching Cassidy and her best rumble tumble friend, Taylor, do their water magic on knee boards. Cassidy actually has a bit of a separate life with Taylor and his family, so much so that there are a number of people in our community who have no idea that Cass is not a full fledged member of Taylor’s family.  Rather than think of myself as lacking as mother I picture it as spreading the love of my amazing daughter. Anyway, I took this little video with my camera, yes I suck at it, but it captures the unified spirit of these two on the water. Truly beautiful.

Yesterday Devon and Cassidy celebrated the day by wetting the trampoline and jumping off the playhouse. The simple joys of summer are so lovely.

This winter has been uncommonly cold here the Colorado Rockies. That’s been a problem for me since I prefer a year round temperature of approximately 84 degrees with a slightly humid breeze caressing my shoulders from a near by body of water. Days of sub zero cold followed by a couple more months of cold and yet more cold have rather sucked. So why do I stay? The kids love it. At least that’s my story and I’ll stick with it for now. This past weekend was Devon’s final day of ski lessons. I bullied Loren into making an appearance and Cassidy showed up in a stunning brown snow bunny ensemble. Seeing my three all together made the cold well worth the effort.

One of the reasons I haven’t been able to write much lately is that I’ve had HUGEchanges in my life. First there was the bit where I reunited with a long ago flame, fell in love with him again and spent nearly every spare moment of my time on the phone with him since he happened to dwell in the depths of the Texas badlands along the Mexico border. Being a single mother of three children  meant we most often stayed up super late or got up extra early to get in a few minutes on the phone that didn’t involve Devon tugging on my sleeve to help him log on to Lego.com, Cassidy rolling her eyes at me or Loren glaring at the phone once again pressed to my ear. Late nights had previously been my blogging time and early mornings reserved for a quiet cup of tea before the madness of the day ensued. All the time on the phone has paid off because now? On February first Dude packed up his two enormous dogs, all his stuff and hauled it the 986 miles from Texas to set up house just 15 miles away from me! Needless to say that for the last four weeks my giddiness has known few to no bounds. (Yes, there is children drama but that is fodder for later posts.) Despite my euphoria at being half of a really good thing, the move hasn’t been without a few hiccups  -and not necessarily the kind I saw coming. Funny enough most of them have involved our cars.

Within the first week or so of Doug living here we were driving to dinner and chatting about nothing in particular when I spun my car 180 degrees on an icy road and stuffed it quite nicely into a snow bank of the oncoming traffic lane. Lucky for us I was going fairly slow and there were no cars coming the either direction. Not too long after that Doug left the lights on in my car over night, requiring a jump start from him the next day. The jumping blew a fuse under my wee Bug hood and it started lurching in lower gears. Nestled in between those times Doug’s two dogs managed to wrangle open a large container of honey in his car which resulted in a sticky buffet of yumminess for them, not to mention of couple of very large beasts hopped up on sweetness. Then there was the morning we forgot my dead car was parked behind his much larger one and he slowly backed up into mine. Good thing for that front license plate, it has amazing absorbency abilities for larger SUV’s. Forward to this week when I took my lurching clown car into the VW boys and they hooked it up to the computer to reset all the mysterious what nots so that I could again use fourth gear. And then today, the icing on the cake was when I let Devon go out to my car to retrieve his Star Wars Lego figures and he stopped, as he always does, to play with lock and unlock buttons before he got out. I keep my keys  in the car because obviously that is the safest place for them. We live in a small mountain town where people rarely lock their cars, at least the people I know don’t. So when this afternoon I went to get into my car and could only pull helplessly at the handle as I gazed my key ring there on the dashboard it hit me that I have become something of a love blinded idiot as of late. If I keep going at this rate I’ll be borrowing Loren’s skate board to get around town. Now I’m not saying Tex has to go back to his dessert but between the two of us somebody needs to buck up and start paying attention. I hope it will be him because I’m having a rather lovely time in my current oblivion -well, other than the ever accumulating car related fees.

I knew my private blogging days were numbered when last spring my ex-husband called me up one morning and apologized for a wrong he had long ago committed against me but that I had just penned about the night before. In truth I knew he read my blog, and by this I mean I thought he merely skimmed it, rolled his eyes at my obviously bizarre past times and then moved on. I didn’t know that he read it and gave it any thought. Same thing when I discovered the wife of Cassidy’s former school principle read my blog. Then this past summer I fell wildly in love with a dashing Texan who later revealed that he had been secretly reading Caloden for a couple of years. Weird stuff, I thought, but all right, weirder things happen.

And then I stopped writing. I stopped because I felt all naked and didn’t quite know what to do with this space. When I began blogging, my life was a mess and my head even messier. Then my father died and I spent a year penning my near daily grief. Eventually the screaming in my head subsided, I wasn’t such a hot mess and then life got really giddy when the Texan and I reconnected and fell in love. But if I wasn’t vomiting out all my angst, what to do with this blog? I have thought about giving it up, avoiding those uncomfortable naked moments when I understand the person I am talking to knows way more about me than I do them because I’ve already told them all my deep dark secrets on the Internet. The truth is that I love Caloden, in fact I’m proud of this compilation of the last four years of my life. If I started a new blog under a new name, which I have considered, it wouldn’t be this blog and I’m not sure I’m the sort of dog who can learn that new trick at this point. Here is where I’ve dumped my woes and joys over the past four years and, if I can summon up the dedication, where I will continue to do so. Like my favorite pair of velour knock off J.Lo yoga pants, I just can’t quit Caloden quite yet.