Category Archives: flourishing tree

Running thoughts: hospitality, humility and humidity

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I really thought that here on the first Wednesday of October, I’d be waxing poetic about the joys of autumn, like the fabulous pumpkin chai I recently discovered at Caribou Coffee. (It’s really awesome, and if you like pumpkin or chai, you’ve gotta try it.)

Instead of writing about the delightful fall, though, I find myself astonishingly grateful for air-conditioning and an order from my doctor to take a week off from running. After all, a run right now would be more like swimming, only without the refreshing water part.

Many of us southern runners love autumn because it lacks the main summertime ingredient that causes us to struggle: humidity. We’ve survived the awful stuff all summer, and in many cases, fall is the time of year that we ramp back up with our running. We can add in more miles and even change up the time of day we run, simply because we’re no longer trying to dodge suffocating heat and humidity. But this week has felt more like late August or early September. Yesterday was so humid outside that the windows of my house fogged up (from the outside). With the start of fall, I thought I was done with tracking sweaty footprints across the floors, not to mention the drenched shoes and running clothes.

While out with my dog this morning, I found the humidity to be overwhelming. So I tried to turn my thoughts to a topic I’ve been working out for my most recent book chapter: hospitality. Do you mind if I revisit the topic? Continue reading →

Less than

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I don’t know about where you live, but Christmas is starting to seep around the edges everywhere here. In the last week, I’ve gotten two Christmas catalogs in the mail, letting me know that I need to get a jump on the decorating and gift buying and plans for cooking.

Have Christmas catalogs begun arriving in your mailbox?

 

Today at Target, while I was hunting for mosquito repellant (still a dire need where I live), I wandered lost among the Halloween costume aisles hoping to find a last remnant of an outdoor section where the repellant sat all summer. And that’s when I stumbled upon an entire section of Christmas cards. In September.

My husband and I haven’t figured out Thanksgiving plans, and already, marketers and merchants are subtly trying to convince me that I’m almost behind the curve on Christmas planning.

All of this got me to thinking about what these retailers are attempting to accomplish, and I think it’s this: If they can make me worry that I may end up with a “less than” Christmas, one that’s less than my neighbors or friends or even the Christmas I imagine in my mind, I’ll buy a bunch of stuff now to make sure I at least look like I’m having a “more than” Christmas.

When the world makes us feel “less than”
I’m not sure when I first learned the less than symbol (<) in math (you know: 3<4), but I’m guessing it was at a pretty young age. You know what else I learned about “less than” at too young an age? What it meant to feel less than.  Continue reading →

Delicious fall

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Fall starts here in the States on Saturday, and I can’t wait! I had a brief conversation with a friend of a friend this past weekend, and he was bemoaning the end of summer. He’s a teacher, and so that might explain part of it, but he’s cold-natured, too, and so that’s another reason he prefers summer to fall. He couldn’t quite understand why I was so giddy about the upcoming season of crunching leaves, pumpkins, hot cider, sweater-and-jeans weather and the smell of evening fires.

Now I know not all of you reading this are heading into autumn (I’m thinking of my Aussie and Kiwi friends particularly who are bidding winter goodbye), but I expect there are beautiful changes in nature poised to happen wherever you live.

This week, the comic strip Mutts is paying tribute to the joys of autumn. I especially love the quote from yesterday’s strip: “Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower.” (Albert Camus)

Every leaf a flower

Continue reading →

The vanishing front porch

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Welcome to the front porch

One evening, as my husband and I sat on our front porch, one of our neighbors walked by and called out to us, saying, “I love to see people using their front porch!” He was pointing out a rarity in our neighborhood, despite several homes having beautiful, welcoming front porches. Most of those porches sit vacant and unused. Even ours sits unused more than it should.

I think air conditioning has forever changed what used to be a sacrosanct aspect of southern hospitality: gathering on the front porch with friends at the end of a day’s hard work. After all, who wants to sit out on the porch battling mosquitos and suffering from the heat and humidity when indoors is so cool and refreshing, not to mention bug-free?

Maybe busyness has also changed how hospitable we are. And I don’t just mean those of us who live in the air-conditioned south. Continue reading →

Inexplicable joy

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Back when I was still working a regular desk job, one of my friends and I would skip lunch every now and then to go for a run together. Though we ran a similar pace, she always ran the downhills better than I did, while I could pass her on the uphills.

One of our coworkers was driving to lunch and saw us out running together, and she remarked, “There go Joy and Hope.” The other person in the car with her was incredulous, “You’re kidding, right?” To which our friend replied, “No. Those are my friends Hope and Joy.” I’ll pause for a moment for you to get all the punny little jokes out of your mind. … Joy and I are used to them. We even feel safe making fun of our own names with each other.

And that’s exactly what Joy did when our friend came back after lunch and told us the story. Joy said, “Yep. It was Joy on the downhills and Hope on the uphills.” Know what? I think she was more right in a deeper-meaning-kind-of-way than either of us realized at the time.

Whether it’s in running or any other aspect of life, the easy downhill parts can bring you great joy. And when you get to the tougher parts, the ones that require a different kind of strength to tackle, well, that’s where hope comes in.

There are plenty of times in our life when we expect joy: marriages, births, special celebrations, getting hired for our dream job, going on that long-anticipated vacation, snow days (well, here in the south, anyway). And, yes, even running down hills.

But I’ve found it’s the inexplicable moments of joy that are the loveliest. Continue reading →