Fair People: A Confession

A bit over a week ago, while visiting my relatives in Buffalo, I took a trip to the Erie County fair. After eating some unhealthy food (and bypassing some really unhealthy food, such as deep fried Oreos and fried dough), we headed to one of the display buildings to see my sister's award-winning flower displays.

Unfortunately, food and drink weren't allowed in the building, and my kids weren't ready to relinquish their lemonades--so my wife and I took turns guarding the lemonades outside while the others took in the floral arrangements and used the restrooms.

That's how I found myself standing there, waiting, a sweating lemonade in each hand. And I did the only thing that made sense under the circumstances: I started people-watching.

I saw tattooed people who (apparently) were trying to expose every fold and flap of skin on which a favorite work of art had been inked.

I saw walking skeletons in Wrangler jeans and blue eye shadow.

I saw men of enormous girth whose mouths were greasy with the oils from the fried-whatever-on-a-stick they were clutching in their fists.

And I thought to myself, "Dear Lord, I may actually be one of the pretty people."

It was something of a jolting thought, and it made me laugh. You see, the week before that, my wife and I were in Boulder, CO, getting ready for her bid to complete a second Iron-distance triathlon (her bid was sadly derailed when she got swimming-induced pulmonary edema the moment she hit the water--but that's another story). While there, I spent a lot of time standing around waiting--and people-watching--while my wife got registered and otherwise ready for the race.

Waiting around in an Ironman Village, while triathletes trot by on every side, is a rather humbling experience. Even vigorously healthy people can start to feel, well, kind of dumpy.

But people-watching at the fair was a decidedly different experience. Glancing at my reflection in the glass doors, I found myself tempted to preen, cock my head, and say, "Hey there, me. You look mighty fine."

Well, not really. But you get the idea.

When I got home, I scrolled through my Facebook newsfeed to discover that a friend had posted a link to an article, "Deep-Fried America on a Stick." It featured portraits of some rather interesting fair-goers and an interview with the photographer, Bruce Gilden. Here's one of his portraits (click the link to see them all):



I stared at the photos. And then I promptly commented on my friend's post with the same glib thought that had entered my head as I was standing there guarding lemonade: I may actually be one of the pretty people.

Then I went to bed. But a day or so later, I found myself remembering something from Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. I don't recall much about the book (I read it a long time ago), but this bit stuck with me.

Valentine Michael Smith, the protagonist of the novel, was raised on Mars by Martians--and one of the more engaging features of the book is Smith's outsider view of human culture. Something that perplexes him is the human concept of beauty. Those that we find beautiful strike Smith as simply boring. In contrast, he is drawn to interesting faces: weathered, wrinkled ones, faces that say something about the character of the person within.

And as that tidbit from the novel drifted to the surface, I felt ashamed. Ashamed of how I'd been looking at the people at the fair.

I returned to the Deep-Fried America article. I looked anew at Bruce Gilden's portraits. I looked at them as Valentine Michael Smith might have looked at them. Or at least in a way that was nudged by his fictional spirit. And I imagined that Bruce Gilden, in his choice of models, was nudged by that spirit as well.

I saw interesting faces, faces full of personality. Most of all, they were faces that told stories.

I wondered what stories I would have seen walking past me at the fair if I hadn't been possessed by my glib little thought. I wondered why we are so prone to see beauty in the superficial way that so puzzled Valentine Smith. I wondered just how much we miss.

When I look at faces like the ones Bruce Gilden photographed and I laugh at them (even if only to myself), these other human beings becomes nothing but a way for me to see myself--a kind of foil. I'm not looking at them. I'm blind to the stories in their faces. Delight, empathy, and fascination are sacrificed to a moment of smug superficiality.

Fortunately, I have a chance to redeem myself. The Oklahoma State Fair is coming up in about a month. I plan to be there, and to do some people-watching. But when I do, I'll be thinking about Valentine Smith.

Surgery, Swimming, and War: What Does Diana Nyad's historic achievement have to do with Syria?

Thanks to my wife, I watched Diana Nyad's historic achievement this weekend--swimming from Cuba to Florida--through a more engaged and passionate set of eyes than I might otherwise have done. Were it not for her I would have been fixated on the news about Syria. As reports came in of Diana's astonishing effort and ultimate achievement, the realization of her "Xtreme Dream," I would've distractedly thought, "That's cool," and then been sucked back into the prospect of missile strikes.

For several years now, my Ironman wife has pushed her physical limits through swimming, biking, and running, but her greatest love is swimming. As I write these words I am sitting in a surgery waiting room while my wife undergoes surgery on both her feet. The surgery is cutting short her season, hopefully with the result that she will be better equipped to "do her impossible" into the future ("Do your impossible" are the words that frame her Ironman tattoo). But it means that she will not be participating in Oklahoma City's Redman triathlon later this month, as originally planned.

Guest Post: Through the Eyes of an Ironman

My wife--a special ed teacher by day--has written an account of her experience competing in her first full Ironman (140.2 mile) triathlon this past weekend at Lake Placid. Since I've mentioned her efforts in a recent post, I thought I'd share on this blog what she's written about her experiences. So...here it is: Through they eyes of an Ironman!
 

A friend recently told me that ironman takes all of your months of training and carefully laid race plans, smashes them to bits, and then hands them back to you in the form of a medal.  That could not be a more accurate description of my race.  :)

After a 4:00 a.m. wake up, I got ready, tried to eat something, gathered my things up, and headed to the transition area.  My bike and gear bags were all in order.  I dropped off my special needs bags, put on my wetsuit, told Eric goodbye, and headed for the swim start.  It was such a surreal experience to actually be in the moment I'd been imagining for so long! The excitement and anticipation of over 2800 athletes makes for an incredible atmosphere! I had no idea that I was about to have the best swim of my life.

 

The pros were called into the water and got to their start.  Then, they called for the rest of us to get in.  I went in right away knowing that being in the water would keep me calm.  (That made me smile, as I found my thoughts wandering back to my first triathlon start in 2010 when I was so terrified that I sat on the dock until the last possible moment.)  The plan for the swim was for me to start about halfway back and toward the right of the pack. This position is a little safer and keeps you from getting quite as beat up in the mass start.  As I waited floating in the water, I realized that only about 100 of us were actually gathering toward the start.  Most people had headed toward shallow water around the edges (I guess because they didn't want to float or tread?) As others began entering and trying to do the same thing, the crowd was being pushed back, and I could see that some swimmers were going to be trapped on the shore.  I didn't want that to happen, and I wanted to be in the water, so I just stayed where I was floating with a group of guys and a few girls for about 20 minutes.  We cheered the pros when they started.  I began moving back a little as the rest of the swimmers moved forward, but I still ended up fairly close to the front and much more to the left than intended. Then the cannon went off, and I was there -- in an ironman!



Chrissie Wellington has described the mass swim start as an all out brawl, and that is exactly what it feels like.  Being kicked, elbowed, hit, swam over...it's all a part of the fun.  :)  As we angled in toward the swim line, I planned to stay a bit outside of the line to avoid the hardcore group.  Lake Placid has an underwater cable that stretches around the swim course.  I had been warned several times since arriving that the real brawl happened near that cable, because everyone wants to swim there so that they don't have to sight.  I swam hard to get to my spot before getting too beat up.  I was feeling pretty proud that I'd managed to hold my own with the tough swimmers long enough to get there.....when I looked down, and saw the cable right underneath me.  There was no way to get out, because everyone seemed to be swimming toward that spot.  It was like being trapped in a washing machine.  I realized that I had no choice but to swim there.  I really surprised myself by adapting to the madness.  I figured out who was kicking hard and narrowed my stroke when I was behind them to protect my head.  When elbows next to me were coming up hard, I breathed only to one side to protect my face.  I fought hard to stay on the cable line and not be pushed inside it.  The people inside would have to struggle to get around the buoys at the course turnaround.  In the end, I really only took two hard hits, and they weren't that bad.  After the first loop, as we ran along the shore, I noticed that I was still near a lot of the guys I'd started with, so I decided to hold that position.  But I did swim a bit farther out from the cable on the second loop.  The swim felt great and was over too soon -- always my favorite part.  I wouldn't know until halfway through the marathon that I'd made such good (for me) time.  One other interesting thing happened during the swim.  When I signed up for Lake Placid a year ago, I ordered a new Road ID bracelet.  On the message line, I had it say, "You are an Ironman!"  I looked at it all through my training to remind myself of the words I was working to hear.  It had the strongest velcro of anything I've ever seen.  As I made the first turn of the swim, it suddenly released from my wrist and floated to the bottom of Mirror Lake.  My immediate thought was that it was a good omen.  After today, I wouldn't have to work toward those words anymore.  I would hear them.  Fortunately, I didn't know at that point just how long it would be until I heard them...

T1 (first transition, from swim to bike) went by without a problem.  I didn't have a volunteer that time, but had no problem getting my bag, getting myself dressed, and grabbing my bike off the rack.  On the way out of transition, I saw my brother and sister-in-law and was able to say hi.  I climbed on the bike and was off.  The first loop was great!  I couldn't get the smile off of my face.  This was the part of the race I'd been the most scared of.  I've never ridden on hills like that and wasn't sure how I would do.  It was hard, and I was slower on the big hills, but I had expected that.  I even relaxed my plan of not exceeding 35 mph before braking on the downhills to not exceeding 40.  It was an absolutely beautiful ride through trees, ski slopes, rivers, and little towns.  After the first loop, I was able to see Eric and the kids cheering.  I was still feeling great.  I stopped briefly at special needs to refill my gels and took off again.  The second loop was harder, but not awful.  It was getting hot, and I had some foot cramps, but that's no shock.  My chain dropped twice, but I was able to fix it fairly quickly.  I did have to stop at port a potties a couple of times, but was relieved that my stomach troubles were nothing compared to what they usually are.  (That was definitely a part of the race plan that DID work!)  I took it easy on the second loop to rest up for the marathon -- especially the last uphill section. Overall, it was a little slower than planned, but a good bike.

I had a volunteer in T2 who was wonderful!  My wetsuit had chafed my arms horribly, and she bandaged them so that they wouldn't get worse during the run.  I was getting really excited at that point thinking that I might actually be able to come in around 14 or 14:30. I was very glad that my stomach issues were resolved so that I wouldn't have to worry about the abdominal cramps I always get on the run leg of triathlons.  I started off the first couple of miles at around a 9:30 pace.  That was faster than planned, so I slowed down a bit for the third mile.  After the third mile, I was slammed by the ab cramps again.  In fact, they were worse than they've ever been.  I walked for a bit trying to shake them off, but as soon as I ran, they came back and got worse.  It went on that way through the entire marathon.  I had to walk/run the entire thing, and by the end, I was at a shuffle. I was so disappointed that what had started out as such a phenomenal race for me was obviously going to end in a very different way.  I saw my family after the first loop which lifted my spirits a bit.  The second loop seemed absolutely endless.  The cramping never went away, I was exhausted, and I'd stopped being able to keep gels down after I started walking more.  The funny thing is that some of the most memorable moments of the day came during that loop.  I walked and ran with different people and learned about their stories.  We shared jokes with the volunteers, got frightened by a horse that snuffled out of pitch darkness, worried together over people being taken away on stretchers in the med carts.  My heart hurt for the many people who were still heading out as I came back in. We all knew that there was no way they were going to make the midnight cutoff, but they were still trying.  Finally, I was coming down the home stretch.  Mike Reilly was there, screaming and waving his towel like I've watched him do so many times on the live feed from my computer at home.  Only this time, he was high fiving ME!  I finally heard the words I'd been waiting for!

 

In the days since the race I have felt so many different emotions. I am humbled and touched by all of the people who left comments and messages that they were following me throughout the day.  I never imagined that so many people (outside of my triathlon friends) would care about the details of the race.  I have felt relieved, elated, disappointed, guilty.  In the end, I have settled on grateful.  I have had an opportunity to make a dream come true.  I have done things that I never dreamed possible.  I wish I could go back to the scared me at CapTex 2010 waiting on the dock and tell her she would be an ironman.  I wish I could go back to the unathletic me who decided suddenly 5 years ago that she'd like to learn to run and tell her that she would do marathons.  I wish I could go back to the 270 pound me of 13 years ago and tell her that someday her thyroid would have less power over her life and she'd be able to make changes.  I'd like to go back to the insecure me and tell her that she would be strong.  Of course, I can't do any of those things.  But I can tell my kids that there are no limits.  I can tell friends that their bodies will do more than they ever dreamed they could.  I can tell my students that it really is possible to reach a goal even when you don't know where to start and everyone around you is so much better at it than you are.  And when those old doubts creep up on me, and I feel powerless to change some situation that seems impossible, I can remind myself that at the end of the long, winding road, I was an ironman.


 

Ironman Wife

The next time I will have a chance to check in on my blog will be next week. By that time my wife will have competed in her first Iron-distance triathlon, in Lake Placid, NY. For those of you who don't know, the Ironman triathlon begins with a 2.4 mile swim, followed by a 112 mile bike, followed by a marathon (26.2 miles). And yes, it's all in a row, all in one day. With time limits.

The journey to Lake Placid has been a transformative one for my wife and for those who love her. She did her first triathlon--Olympic distance--in 2010, and did her first half-Iron this past September. Since then she has been steadily training, building up her endurance and her strength and her speed. A few weeks back she did a hundred mile bike ride, got home, hopped in the shower, and went on with the day as if she'd been out mowing the lawn for an hour.

Not so many years ago, she'd never run around the block. She was a singer and actress (very good at both, by the way), not an athlete. Her native compassion moved her to train for a marathon with Team in Training (the most significant fundraising source for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society). She did her first marathon while nursing a stomach virus. She hadn't eaten the day before.  She finished, and then began training for the next.

My wife is strong. She is determined. She is stubborn. She reaches for and accomplishes what most others imagine to be impossible.

I am married to this woman, and I am proud of her. Proud to have her as a partner in life. Grateful that she is the person who stands beside me in raising our children.

Yesterday I posted about the views of marriage endorsed by Douglas Wilson and his acolyte, Jared Wilson. They think a husband/wife relationship is essentially hierarchical, that it is inescapably and inevitably about authority and submission (albeit, supposedly, a benign and caring authority and a joyous submission). They think egalitarianism is a lie. They think attempts at achieving egalitarian marriages lead to twisted forms of hierarchy--rape fantasies and the like.

I'm not sure what they'd say about my marriage to a soon-to-be Ironman triathlete. She is physically stronger than me. She does things I cannot fathom. But I'm not jealous. I'm proud of her. My manhood isn't threatened, because I don't buy into such a stupid, banal, and destructively straight-jacketing vision of gender relationships as the one that the Wilsons endorse. If I did, our marriage would collapse. As it is, our marriage grows.  

My wife knows kickboxing. I don't. If we were threatened in the street, I know who I'd count on to defend us. Does this make me less of a man? Am I a failure as a husband because it would be presumptuous of me to "take care of and protect" the delicate flower that my wife is not? No. What it means is that the Wilson's vision of marriage is a really, really bad fit for the marriage that my wife and I have. Th Wilsons try to absolutize. They try to demonize what doesn't fit. But the real demon is the effort to force diverse things into a singular mold.

I would never dream of demanding my wife's submission to me, nor would she imagine the reverse. We are partners. She didn't seek my permission to pursue her triathlon passion as if I were her lord and master. We talked about it as equal partners because of the financial costs and the time involved. And on Sunday, I will be cheering from the sidelines, just as she cheers me on when I pursue my passion for music and writing.

And believe it or not, none of this feels as if I'm repressing reality. Rather, it feels as if I'm embracing it. The patriarchal vision is about ego--about the desire to have a picture of intimacy that allows for the indulgence of one's ego (albeit in caring, condescendingly benevolent forms). To cheer on the successes of a determined woman who surpasses you, you have to release your ego.

And that, in the end, is what Jesus calls all of us to do. That is what love calls us to do.