Return to Humboldt

MM rented us a van to drive down, which made more sense since our car's tires are bald and about to pop and the IRS just can't seem to deposit our tax return no matter our increasing desperation. drive down took 10 plus hrs b/c of stopping extended 2 times (once riverside park in grants pass, once in crescent city). at last we arrive.

at airbandb in bayside and the smell at night/morning is so long ago familiar that it aches. there are mirrors reflecting and refracting into hallways and corridors*. here we are at breakfast at X which used to be called Y which was where we ate when M and I were pretending we weren't a couple in summer of 95 so her ex didn't kill us; here's the loggia at the Minor Theater where M and I sat after our first benign coupling (her in a b/w pixies t shirt) saying 'we both know it didn't mean anything' except now I'm yelling at our son to calm the f down. here's the Plaza in full farmers market mode w/ organic nut pastes and whatnots. here's patrick's point state park and the memories of M and I getting married there, making everyone meet us there, making everyone walk out to wedding rock; here's the memory of going there in the july before our wedding to scope it out; here's where Darren and I camped that night after my son's namesake died. here's redwood park which triggers the memory of the photo I had of CR there w/ her beau at the time who we called 'hair guy' months before she and I got together, where I went for a run or two w/ J prior to apparently turning into a giant asshole. Here's the coop where M's ex works and where we all stop for sandwiches to see him. Here's me in the car w/ DMG (who went to school w/ me and lived in LA when we were there but lives in portland now and who worked on my movie) driving and SB (who shot/coproduced my movie) en route to the Avenue of the Giants so all 3 of us can run the 1/2 marathon - all 3 of us in various states of transition, transfiguration, repair. Here we are running late, stepping forward, the air charged w/ past/present, moving, running, going, not stopping.

*the corridors contain: my first arrival, 26 yrs ago, me moving in to apartment w/ CR 25 yrs ago and working at the American Deli (RIP) while not going to school b/c I was someway or other going to be some sort of artist (though that only manifested by me reading Henry Miller's oeuvre and writing in my journal); me moving to the Beverly House a yr later after CR and I broke up and she moved to Portland; me and Matt and George moving to the 11th st house a yr after (and where M sought me out  to talk when she and not-yet-ex were in death throes); me in the shack behind 11th st house the yr after; the house on Grant Ave 6 mos later; the death of my son's namesake on the side of the 101 near Moonstone Beach; the film department at the college; a couple romantic dalliances that were defining in several ways but that share the DNA of those-people-want-nothing-to-do-with-me-ever-again which suggests I was an asshole; the summer b/f my last yr when i worked floor camera at tv station during the olympics w/ Joe S who in some manner sold me bill of goods about LA and AFI but maybe he didn't really know who he was then; the projectionist gig at the Broadway Cinema; this creeping sensation of nobody knows what I am going to be/do and boy won't they be sorry; and so on and so on, all humming at once around every corner, pulsing with some varietal of cosmic wisdom or dumbfuck randomness. 

over and over

up early Sunday AM, down Hawthorne Blvd and SE 37th w/ coffees and scones and 2 young kids to watch an old friend passing nearby in road race and a surging tide of runners pass in great swells, expelled from some great bottomless ocean. I am suddenly overcome as I watch - the sense memory of running/training-for several marathons myself, starting with 3 I trained for a million years ago in Los Angeles and in particular one in 2007 meant to demarcate my survivorship after my brain tumor enterprise and all parts therein in 2005 - as well as the simple metaphor of standing, participating, moving despite odds, body, history, as well as the non-stop nature of the bodies: Bodies running, then more, then more, then more. And a line from a song I used to listen to frequently once upon a time loops through my head as I stand holding my son (who's watching the 4 white guys play rasta music out of the rain under their small canvas tent) "...over and over we die one after the other..." and the bodies are all at once confirmation and defiance of this.



later, I have 2 hours to myself so I see Sunset Boulevard at the Laurelhurst, a film I am very familiar with but it too is bottomless. my past and present intersect on and off screen, the aspirant screenwriter who lived in LA a million years ago reads the film different than the non-LA based director of now, but then there has also been time/space in between, and I am exactly between Joe Gillis and Norma Desmond now, so I understand her in different ways, her delusion once so grotesque now more comprehensible and human and hence more tragic. Also, the precision and perfection of some of the shots and tightness of script and casting and score - all a marvel as per usual

There is connection to be made between these two events, these two paragraphs but I don't know how to say it or even really what it is but I can feel it. Something about perspective and sheer luck of being able to have it. Forward and backward and forward and over and over one after the other.

5-6-7

just dawned on me today that tuesday was one year since I ran the vancouver marathon. unbelievable. i am perpetually reminded of my good fortune to still be drawing breath and not be living in brain-tumor world any longer, or at least not w/ the immediacy and urgency of before.

currently i'm training for the portland marathon in october, not on behalf of the NBTF formally but certainly peripherally, as a survivor.

total failure, total letdown

i ran the vancouver bc marathon on 5/6/07
and i have not run a step since. at least i hadn't until two days ago.
and then someone convinced me to do it. here i was, this close, so close to coming around the bend and making it a full year since running but no, i couldn't do that right could i? i just had to run again, didn't i? pathetic.

after the race

the marathon (video)

music by phillip glass

done

i'm back and i've done it
been trying to post a photo but blogger is
giving me trouble
i'll try to do some tomorrow
along w/ a semi-coherent narrative of the
event itself

training run 5/4/07

this proves to a month of months:
tomorrow we leave for vancouver, run the marathon on sunday
next thurs we (ostensibly and barring complication)
close on a house
the following wednesday we fly to los angeles
and then on to london & paris
whew

been cranky & edgy these past couple days
find myself worrying about things like
the race course, the weather on race day
fatigue factor by mile X and on and on and on

i'm almost up to 4200$ though

so, this AM
I strapped on the shoes and set out for a final
training run - for this marathon anyway - thru
laurelhurst park. tried to go real light
and not push it. felt gratitude
at being alive and being able
to draw breath.
i'm not really concerned with time
or where or how i place on Sunday
i just want to finish standing up
that's it

onward

training run 2/21/07

6 mi
nice enough outside. Ran straight up stark to the tabor reservoir. circled a couple times and it was time to come back.