The Messy Middle
“Why do all of your writings have to tidy all up by the end into a happy moral lesson?” Said Jane, the wiser, older one in the neighborhood writing group I belonged to. This was back in the 1900s {long time ago} but her comment obviously stuck with me. She was/is right. I am okay to go through something hard or painful as long as, in the end, I can see a beautiful lesson or vantage point etc.
I think what Jane was suggesting, however, is that I could benefit from writing about or staying with or contemplating on the “messy middle”. It is in the pain or the mess where we find our humanness. Working our way through the mess provides the process of strength building and evolution.
Yesterday I went on a run that had a WHOLE lot of messy middles. The mileage was probably my shortest run in years and yet…
We had been snowshoeing on the trails near our mountain home all week. I knew where the packed snow was and I was excited at the prospect of a spikes on snow running adventure. Within the first few strides, I knew this would be harder than anticipated. My feet were sinking a good 4-5 inches into the snow rather than staying on the top 1-2 inches which is ideal. l decided to continue realizing that this route may involve more hiking and less running…still okay and more efficient than snowshoeing. I continued. I alternated run/hike/run/hike…this went on for about a mile and a half
My aftershokz headset was blasting podcast noise through my bones just outside my ears…don’t ask me, it just works. I chose said headphones specifically for trail running so that I could be aware of my surroundings as well as enjoy the selected audio. I realized about mile 2 that I was hearing howling in addition to my podcast. I pulled my headset down and realized that there was a pack of coyotes howling in the brush just east of the trail I was running on. I started pushing myself like my life depended on it cuz I was pretty sure it did and I ran until I realized I could no longer hear the howling. Just as relief registered, I came across this:
This “river” used to be my trail. I have run down this trail in all seasons for years. Never have I ever seen it filled in with running water!
I began to make my way down the trail by keeping my feet out of the water as much as possible. But soon discovered, that at many points, I would have to tread through the water in order to continue. Did I mention that it was FREEEEEZING water? One life coaching term refers to the progress you have to make in order to get from where you are to where you want to be as the “river of misery” and that term came to mind immediately as I started making my way down this water falling route.
Just as I got to the bottom of the river trail and merged onto the final stretch of my journey, I discovered what I have now termed “slurpy snow”. Imagine hiking through a slurpy…really cold, really wet and very slow going. I was sinking up to my thigh with every step. I started to panic a bit realizing that I was not progressing forward much at all and instead, was struggling to stay upright as I pulled one leg out and took the next step just to find the same sinking, sinking into the freezing water-packed snow sludge.
It was at this point that I thought of Bear Grylls. Do you know him? He is a survivalist who has been in the media for decades. My boys used to love to watch “Man vs. Wild”. Currently I have enjoyed “Running Wild with Bear Grylls”.
Back to Kath vs. Winter running….I realized, I am not going to make it without losing my toes if I don’t make quicker progress. I decided that the best option was to crawl my way to firmer ground. My thinking was that if I could spread my weight on to my hands, and legs proper {just learned that is the term for leg below the knee…who knew?} that I wouldn’t sink so far into the snow sludge. I crawled for several feet and tried to stand up just to find myself sinking again into what felt like snow quicksand.
Returning to my hands and knees, I crawled the last half mile of my adventure. As I was crawling, I was trying to think of anyone who could possibly help me get out of this situation. I thought of a neighbor who lives right by the trail and called her phone, but she was not picking up. I called my husband, realizing that he was so far away that by the time he could get to me it would be all over. I had to keep moving. I would freeze if I stayed put. I couldn’t feel my toes and the front part of my legs. Moving as quickly as possible I scrambled up to the last climb of the trail. At one point I looked up to see a truck pass on the road above and I waved my arms as if to try to bring in the rescue party. Like he would ever look down and think, “I wonder what that woman is doing crawling in the snow? Maybe she needs help? NOT!” No one was gonna rescue me today, it was up to me.
I made it! As soon as I hit the road, I walked home without even taking off my spikes. I will spare you the description of having my toes and legs return to life and the increased heart rate that apparently comes when recovering from low temperature exposure, just know that I will never attempt a slush run without my snowshoes on my back.
I don’t want to jump to this was an amazing experience because of all that I learned because as Jane said, maybe it would be good for me to stick around and think about the messy parts.
I did not want to accept the present snow conditions even though I knew they were not ideal.
I didn’t turn back when I could have.
As soon as I heard the howling, my mind gave me the warning that I was going to be coyote cuisine if I didn’t get the He** outta there!
I kept the podcaster who was talking about “celebrating yourself on the regular” blaring in my ears as some kind of a helpful diversion or taunt… “this is certainly not something to celebrate today!”
I knew there was no one who could help me.
I also knew that this experience was one I would try to share but I wouldn’t be able to adequately portray.
There you have it…my messy middle.
I am not going to wrap it all up for you but I do want to say that because of said adventure, I was able to come home and open the flood gates of emotion that this day had stored for me. Today was the 1 year anniversary of my Dad’s death. I did not know the emotions that were longing to be recognized and experienced but as I thawed so did my grief.
Love you Dad.
xoKathleen
PS. Snow conditions vary hour by hour. These conditions were due to several hours of rainfall on top of previously powder packed snow trails. Stay safe.
