Snowed In
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
After throwing a rousing dinner party the night before (well, maybe not rousing per se, but lots of food and too much wine, for sure), I peeled myself out of bed Saturday morning, as I always do, because of the dogs. They wanted out, as they always do.
And as I stood in the backyard with them (I have a backyard now!...more on that to come), thinking, "I should really pick up the yard before it snows," it started to snow. At exactly that instant. Small, fluffy flakes great in number and falling with intensity.
Throughout the weekend, the flakes kept coming. Kept falling. After briefly venturing out on an ill-advised brunch trip, Chief of Stuff and I returned straight home. Errands were put off, to-do lists tossed aside. And we planted ourselves firmly in the living room, alone together, organizing old pictures that we had both kept boxed for far too long.
I mused, to myself, that had this kind of snow -- this kind of day -- presented itself in Marquette, Michigan where I attended graduate school, I likely would have gone about my usual business. Snow in Marquette, after all, wasn't significant unless measured in feet at a time, not inches. And since Marquette is perched on the shore of Lake Superior in the "snow belt" of snowy Upper Peninsula of Michigan, snow there wasn't really all that significant, ever.
But here in Madison, it is. There are more people. More streets to plow. More cars for those plows to navigate. And regardless of there actually be less total accumulation than I'm used to, that makes it tougher going no matter where you want to go. So, this weekend, it was nice to have an excuse not to go at all.
My plan was to binge on the remaining episodes of "Tell Me YouLoveMe" that I had left to watch. After not having more than basic cable for more than five years now, I do now, and have been taking full advantage of it. I wanted -- no, needed -- to find out what was up with Dave and Katie...if Jamie would get back together with Hugo, and what would happen now that Carolyn and Palek had given up on trying to have a baby and Palek had said that he didn't want kids anyway.
But the stubborn little cable box insisted that it was having problems connecting to its mothership, and wouldn't let me watch OnDemand. I fumed. I pouted. And then, I discovered that Kona was on!
Kona, as in the Ironman World Championships.
I didn't know how I'd feel about watching this. Inspired to do it again? Revulsion at the memories it brought back -- a year of double bricks, bonks and roadside meltdowns..the Dairyland Dare.
And here are some of the thoughts that went through my mind and passed by my lips whilst watching:
On the shot of the swim -- called a "contact sport" (isn't that the truth!) by the narrator -- both from above and below the water: "Ohmygod, I can't believe I survived that. And am I ever glad that I didn't watch this before September!"
On watching Natascha Badmann crash her bike, and then continue on with a broken shoulder or collarbone until she couldn't bear it any longer: pure awe...and that the bike leg hurts badly enough without doing it after breaking bones.
On witnessing Normann Stadler getting taken away in a med van: "Wow, it really can happen to anyone."
On watching the officials tell a woman she had missed the bike cut-off by four seconds and seeing her guided away, sobbing: "That's a lot of why I had a meltdown at the end of my bike leg. Because I'm not so unlike her. Because that -- not making it -- was entirely possible."
And on seeing Chrissie Wellington demolish the field in only her second Ironman: "How in the hell does she do it? And running the second-fastest marathon ever at Kona, to boot? Insane. And amazing. She makes it look deceivingly easy."
On watching Chrissie Wellington smile, ear-to-ear, throughout the entire thing?: "She looks how I felt that day. And that's what Ironman is about."
There were so many more impressions I had. It did bring back so many almost-tangible memories. And I was inspired...just not enough to want to do it again right now. But eventually, I lost interest. Because despite all of the motivational and uplifting music, the calm-yet-forceful in a this-is-important-sort-of-way voiceovers, the amazing stories of each athlete out there -- despite all that, it felt flat and inaccessible compared to my September 9th...to being inside of it looking out, instead of outside looking in.
I changed the channel. The cable box was now ready to let me watch Tell Me YouLoveMe. And I felt guilty as I settled into Episode 8. Because I should have been glued to video of Kona's unrelenting topography and climate, to the athletes that struggled to endure it...and themselves. I was over it, though. Ready to move on.
Later that night, I got a voice mail from one two of my closest friends and biggest supporters who were drinking wine and watching the World Championships from their couch in Washington, D.C. They said they had thought of me, and how happy I looked in all of my pictures, and that I had made it look so much easier than some of the stragglers at Kona looked. And that they were proud of me. Again.
That voicemail meant so much. It stuck with me throughout that night as I fell asleep. In fact, it's still with me. Because for me, Ironman was never about Kona, even someday. It wasn't about my time. It was about -- as I've said a million times -- the experience, the proving to me that I could.
And out of that experience, I got so much more than I had bargained for. Messages like that one. So much support. So much -- just so much.
Someday, I think, I'll be able to watch Kona through the same lens as most people. With the appropriate awe and respect that it deserves. Right now, there's just too much tied up in it. Too many emotions that I'm trying to let settle.
And that settling, it's been slow.
Posted by Erin 1:26 PM