Let Gratitude Shape Your Attitude—and Your Running
"When a person doesn’t have gratitude, something is missing in his or her humanity. A person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude." – Elie Wiesel
On Thanksgiving morning, I was awakened, as I had been every morning since Halloween, by a searing, electric pain in my face. It was as if someone were piercing my teeth, gums, tongue, cheek and lips with some kind of superheated electric needle. It was (and is) the kind of incandescent, white-hot, pure sensation that leaves very little room for thoughts of anything else. The good news is the pain can be halted pretty much in its tracks by ceasing to engage in the movements that cause the pain. Movements like chewing, swallowing, yawning or speaking.
Sure, no problem. No eating, drinking, or talking; problem solved! Insert eye-roll emoji here. And brushing my teeth? Five minutes of the most indescribable self-torture you can imagine.
The pain came on while I was in New York City, working the Marathon Expo for rabbit. I managed to get through the weekend by drinking all of my calories, (think Dr. Pepper and smoothies, not alcohol) smiling a lot and speaking very little. That, and soaking up the kindness, excitement and joy of the employees and volunteers who manned the rabbit booth, not to mention the thousands of racers and fans who packed The Jacob Javits Center those three days. It’s funny, but even though I was in a fairly constant state of agony that entire long weekend, what I remember most is how much fun I was having. I cannot imagine getting through those days without those wonderful people, much less enjoying those days as much as I did.
I took the train home to Connecticut on marathon Sunday, and was met by my very concerned partner, who had already made me an appointment with her dentist. Climbing into the car next to her in New Haven, looking into those concerned eyes, almost made me forget about the pain. Almost.
My next two weeks were consumed by doctor visits. My partner’s very kind dentist could find no cause for the pain, nor could the equally kind endodontist to whom he sent me. I saw my primary care physician, who, baffled, referred me to an ENT specialist. That thorough and compassionate soul was pretty sure a colleague in neurology could get to the bottom of things, so less than a week later – the wait for a neurologist appointment is often months – I found myself in an office with not one, but two neurologists, who diagnosed my problem – mandibular trigeminal neuralgia – and sent me home with a prescription and an appointment for an MRI to find where the pressure on the nerve was coming from.
The bad news: it could take as much as a month for the drug to ease the pain, which I would still call unbearable, though I had been bearing it for nearly a month. The good news: the UCONN Health Medical Campus was just blocks from a truly excellent trail network, so every doctor’s visit held the promise of a post-appointment dance with dirt. I should mention here that two of my doctors’ appointments during this time had nothing to do with the pain in my mug, but rather, the cancer in my prostate, (or as I call it, my walnut) which had been diagnosed a couple of weeks before the neuralgia pain appeared. One might surmise, and one would be correct, that I had a lot on my mind. Thankfully, there were a lot of nearby trails on which to think.
Which brings us back to Thanksgiving, which, as we’ve learned, dawned with some serious pain in the kisser. It also dawned with torrential rains and temps in the mid-thirties, and like most runners when waking to such challenging conditions, my first thought (after Damn, my face hurts) was, Sweet! Time to break out the gear! So, I coaxed my beloved (who is a hiker, and slightly less jazzed by inclement weather than I) from a warm bed full of cats, with a cup of coffee and a reminder of her awesome new red Gore-Tex jacket, and into the deluge we went.
Now, given the general tone of this piece so far, one might assume me to be one of those stiff upper lip, joke through any calamity kind of people, one who scoffs at the very idea of whining or moaning. Au contraire mon frère! If my partner-in-crime had a dime for every time I mumbled, “It hurts!” or said, “I want a cheeseburger/tacos/pizza/etc.,” she would be a very wealthy woman. If she could cash-in on every pout and woe-is-me look, well, move over Jeff Bezos. Because well, this sucks! It does hurt! I really do miss food that is more solid than mashed potatoes or pudding! And I have freaking cancer!
However…
…gosh, I have a whole team of medical professionals who care about and even seem to like me! One is even a serious trail runner! I have family who text me every day, knowing I can’t talk. I have a sweetie who puts up with my grumping about and even mashes things up that I may gum them into submission before our leapfrog hiking/running sessions. I have students who are kind and accepting of my newfound addiction to the whiteboard. I have a few close friends who keep tabs and keep me laughing. And I have (and this cannot be stressed enough) a community. Nay, a web of communities, both physical and online, that remind me I’m a part of something bigger than myself, when without them I might let the sadness and frustration over my afflictions grow into something more dangerous than a temporary nerve disorder or a very manageable form of cancer.
The writing group I have been a part of for years will still be there every Tuesday when I am able to talk about their poems again. Running doesn’t hurt (well, not my face, anyway) so meeting training partners for some trail time, where they can now get a word in edgewise, is still doable. And my broader running and writing communities online are more of a salve for what ails me than I can ever explain. So, I guess I have deeply buried the lede here, but the real subject of this piece is gratitude.
Albert Schweitzer said, “At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.” In a time when I’ve needed a whole bunch of kindling, I’ve had a whole community of souls, each with their own particular spark.
And therapist Brene Brown said, “I don’t have to chase extraordinary moments to find happiness – it’s right in front of me if I’m paying attention and practicing gratitude.”
And gratitude is a practice, just like meditation or the oboe. If we are mindful of the things or people that make our lives richer and happier, if we practice this mindfulness every day, then that gratitude not only makes us feel better, but colors all of our interactions. Gratitude becomes a verb. We start bestowing our gratitude on others. We become – despite our pain – veritable spewers of empathy and good deeds, or as John F. Kennedy once said, “As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” Take that, despair!
And as any runner can tell you, any horror that can be run through is a horror that can be lived through. I cannot begin to express (Oh hell, I’m a writer. Of course I can begin to express!) how much running has helped me through this mess so far. The mere fact that running does not hurt, while every other taken-for-granted daily activity hurts like hell, makes life livable. The gratitude I feel for being able to lace ‘em up and get outdoors is immeasurable.
This brings to mind maybe my favorite quote about gratitude, from one of the greatest poets in the English language, John Milton: “Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.”
Doesn’t that sound like a description of running itself? And what is running, if not a practice? Solitary, in pairs or in groups; on trails, the road or on the track, the practice of running mirrors the practice of gratitude. It makes us stronger. It makes us better friends, family members, and members of our communities. In a weird way, running is not only an expression of gratitude, but gratitude itself.
And since this is a Dream Chasers essay, what, you might ask, is the particular dream I’m chasing? Well, other then the end of this incessant freaking pain in my face and successful radiation treatment on my cancerous walnut, I do have a little running something, something in mind. There are two 50K races I am eyeballing this spring, both in the West, and both on flowy, smooth western trails, the kind of trails that, despite some decent vert, I might be able to both stay on my feet and run fast enough to make people say, “What? That geezer ran that fast?!?!?!” Yeah, that would be nice.
