Rain

At what age do we decide that rain ruins a picnic? In the rain everyone treks into work with scowls on their faces. Except a this little girl about five years old. She had cute little ladybug boots, with a matching raincoat and umbrella that instead of covering her head she twirled around. Rain meant it was time to play, just as sun means its time to play.

Years ago, while vacationing in Disney, it started to rain. I forget whether Aimee or Rob started playing in the rain first but soon the three of us where slipping and sliding around, getting completely soaked. Back under the awning, my parents were receiving dirty looks from all the other parents whose children wanted to join us. My parents say they endured the looks because we were too old to disciple, but I think they understand the need to play.

The subways are always grumpy places when it is raining. Filling a tiny space with a bunch of wet people who have decided that the rain messed up their plans causes people to snap. I witnessed two old ladies on the train the morning of the ladybug princess. One started lecturing about deference to elders, complaining that all respect had left society. She continued on for a few stops even after the recipient had clearly stopped listening. The other woman jumped onto the train saying “I would have never fit before. I’m shrinking. Thank God for old age.” When another rider yelled at people to move in, her response was “Don’t worry about them, they are just tired this morning. How are you?” The yeller had no clue how to respond to such a positive response.

When I’m old, I want to be like the second lady. But her attitude wasn’t something she magically obtained one day. She had to develop a habit of choosing to be happy. A pattern of complaining, likewise, will carry on till you are a bitter old woman (or man).

Kids have the amazing ability to live in the present; to take whatever comes and make the best of it. They don’t (initially) live life measuring events up to an ideal situation. Hopefully I can develop a habit of playing in the rain, whatever form that takes.

Marathon

This weekend I completed a marathon in the Hamptons. I went into the marathon without training because I hate running alone. I also had spent the two nights before on 8-hour bus rides to and from Buffalo to celebrate my brothers 21st b-day. (Happy Birthday Robert!) It didn’t make the best conditions for running a marathon but I truly had no idea what I was getting into. Unlike my half marathon where I wanted to run the whole thing (and did), my goal for the marathon was simply to not give up (I didn’t).

Mile 1-5: Feeling good, running at a nice pace, lots of people and spectators and smiles.
Mile 7-13: They split the full marathon runners away. Because I’m running at a steady but slow pace I’m towards the back and there aren't a lot of us, no cheerers, no change in scenery. My extroverted side is getting grumpy. My ankles are starting to hurt but self talk is working. I tend to self-talk in two different ways. The first is tough love: “Jennifer, do you really need to walk? I didn’t think so.” The second is as if I were a two-year old or a dog: “What a good girl. Look at you running.”
Mile 13.1 Halfway there! Still feeling lonely and now the pain has moved to my calves but every step after this is farther than I have run before.
Mile 15: Took a 10 second walk which broke my mental game. Still to make it 15 miles is pretty darn good.
Mile 17: Minor breakdown. My legs are killing me and there hasn’t been people in a very long time. I switch between running like a little old lady and walking. I have no internal motivation to run, instead feeding off the energy I get from crowds.
Mile 20: Dance party and back to running. ‘Tightrope’ has become my new running song. Dancing makes me happier even when I’m dancing like a crazy person alone in the woods.
Mile 22: I have a full blown temper tantrum like a 4-year old, except I didn’t stomp my feet because they hurt so badly. I would have been completely embarrassed to let anyone hear my whining but there was no one around me. “I hate these woods, I hate running, this isn’t fun anymore, I hate this, I’m all alone, I want to quit, this sucks.” All I really wanted to do was sit down in the middle of the road but I knew my legs wouldn’t let me back up.
Mile 23: I laughed at how dramatic I was being and started to run again. There was a group of people who were cheering on a friend running slightly behind me and I adopted them as my own. I knew I couldn’t quit now. I can’t tell if it was a personal need or because I didn’t want to have to tell people that I quit. Either way my new goal was to run the last three miles. I had a tear streaked face but a smile.
Mile 24: Ran by the ocean didn’t even see it. I’ve heard it looked beautiful.
Mile 25: The last mile seemed like the longest.
Mile 26.2: As soon as I saw the finish line I started full out running. Everything else disappeared. My headphones flew out of my ears and started flapping behind me. I’m sure my face looks crazed in the picture. But… I FINISHED.

I’m glad I took on the challenge and completed a marathon. However, I don’t think I’ll get addicted to marathons. I averaged a little over a 13 minute mile which all things considered is a respectable time. Granted, I was towards the back of the pack but despite more physical pain than my mind was able to process and a high level of emotional turmoil I finished.

Congrats to Jeff & Nick on completing the Hamptons Half Marathon- their first endurance race.

Longkong

The first question you may be asking is: “What in the world is a Longkong?” It is a fruit native to Thailand, slightly larger than a grape but smaller than a strawberry, with a distinctive sweet and sour taste. It has translucent flesh with a shiny seed the size of a marble in the center that has a rich brown color.

The next question would be: “Why devote a blog entry to such a fruit?” Especially a blog where I typically share things I consider to be adventures. I have spent over six years trying to find this fruit. It became a mystical endeavor for me, an adventure in its own right. It made sense I couldn’t find it in upstate New York. But for the past three years I have lived in NYC, where anything and everything you could possible want from around the globe is offered to you. Except, apparently, the Longkong. In every new grocery store, every little hole-in-the-wall deli, every fruit stand, I explored the fruit section looking and hoping without result.

Last week I went to the fruit man by my work and saw a large box filled with small round tan circles. I barely restrained myself to buying two pounds; I wanted the whole box.

The fruit isn’t some ambrosia-like substance. It is about more than just the taste for me. Every time I peel back the thin tan skin, I’m reminded of sitting on benches eating with the girls from the Home of Blessing in Thailand after they returned from school. They didn’t own many possessions but they took such delight in sharing their lives with us. Plus, like all students, it provided a distraction from starting their homework. While working on building a road or clearing the rice fields we had pockets filled with Longkong.

Camp+

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nuT1uvDR64

Labor Day weekend I went to summer camp with my go-to outdoorsy friend M and Urban Escapes. It had all the right ingredients to recreate the world of middle school sleepaway camp, plus a few additions, like wine, to update it for adults. There were roaring bonfires with sing-alongs and smores; small wooden cabins with bunk beds and bugs; games such as volleyball, capture the flag, flag football, and kickball; exercise with yoga and trail runs; crafts such as lanyard keychain making; water events of blobbing and a zip line; and nightly dance parties. There was even a 20+ person cup game. Our behavior matched that of summer camps I remember with new friends, innocent flirtations, mild drama, and sneaking around after curfew. The guides had an amazing comaraderie between themselves though many of them had never met and that created an atmosphere of friendship and fun for the rest of us.

The video and picture are of blobbing. Which, as I so gracefully demonstrate, is a lot more entertaining when it goes slightly wrong. Thanks to R&D for the spectacular gang blob.

This summer has been dominated by water activities. I went kayaking on the Hudson with my sister. Downtown Boathouse is a free kayaking rental program which allows you to kayak against the beautiful backdrop of the Upper West Side. The day was perfect and not only because we did not tip into the sketchy dirty water filled with lotto tickets and other trash.

I also went whitewater rafting. The guides said there were level 3 rapids. I doubt it. Still we did go through rapids backwards as a general rule, hit almost every rock even if it was on the opposite side of the river from us, and propel everyone on my side of the boat into the water.

Biodegradable

From my water bottle:

“This bottle is completely biodegradable… This bottle currently biodegrades in every State in the U.S. except CA”

So does the bottle like CA so much that it wants to stay there forever? Or does it hate the state so much that it refuses to do its part to help with the pollution issue in protest?

Skydiving

The best part about life is every experience is different. I've jumped off things and over things but the sensation of jumping out of a plane while sky diving is unique and not just because my ears hate the change in altitude. I thought the best way to share the experience is through a photo montage. A link to the video is first:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcFOr-kPA-g


Signing our lives away... literally.

My dive group

Getting ready to board!














"Whoa. That's a long..."














"...way down"














No idea you go headfirst towards the ground at 200 miles an hour.














"Look at me I did it!"














Stable but fast. Jumped at 14,000 feet. The little pink chute (not pictured) is for stability. It doesn't seem to slow you down any.














Enjoying the ride.














Spinning in circles.














Trying to take it all in.














Simply smiling and flying














My instructor (Rob) was also keeping an eye on my videographer (Timmayo). Here he is telling him to pull his legs in. Clearly signals sent to me wouldn't be processed. I use their names because if you go this is the team you want. But if you go with me, I get first claim.














Goofing off at 6,000 feet.














Isn't there something you should be doing at 5,000 feet?














Oh yeah, pulling the cord.

I opened the chute! (with a little help). What isn't pictured here is the floating time. Suspended in the air, spinning is circles, taking in the sights.















Coming in for the landing.















A suprisingly graceful landing.

The complete team, back on solid ground.

I never consciously thought I would die but my body responded with a survival instinct. Time slows down, the world seems brighter, and I become very hyper. The views are amazing and because the senses are on overload, it is possible to take in the sights even when in free fall. After the parachute is released you float above the world in a calm manner. My instructor and I followed some hawks because they are the clues to thermals which allow you to stay in the air longer. I was the first one out of the plane of my team and the last to touch down. We spun different ways and I learned how to stop the chute in the air giving an odd feeling of weightlessness and gravity at the same time.

A new friend and fellow team member eloquently captured her personal deeper meaning behind sky diving over lunch as “Letting Go”. For me, it took some time for my survival part of the brain to quiet enough for me to realize that the deep recesses of my brain had also been working while traveling though the air at 200 miles per hour.

When I look at my life and the next steps I’m “supposed” to take, I realize I don’t want the traditional life. I kept trying to ignore that, to force myself into roles that don’t give me purpose. I decided years ago that 27 would be the best year of my life. So far I’m right. The reason: I am purposefully creating this wonderful year. Filling it with the expereinces I want. The theme of this year is perfectly captured in skydiving: Creating amazing, bright, meaningful moments.

I went skydiving in New Jersey at Freefall Adventure. They are the largest center in the Northeast. The instructors are amazing. Everyone responds to the stress of their first jump differently and the instructors work hard to match what is needed for each individual. Calming down those that are nervous, rationally talking through those that are reserved, and blending hyped up excitement with instruction for those that can’t stop talking. Take a wild guess which I would be. If you can’t figure it out re-watch the video.

Hiking

One of the hardest adjustments about living in the City is the lack of weekend hiking trips. Growing up between the Adirondacks and the Catskills meant we went hiking a lot. Since moving to Manhattan, it’s a little more difficult to get out into nature. While my sister was in grad school (Congrats Aimee you’re done!) I would meet up with her for the weekend. Luckily there are a few groups in Manhattan that take hikers up to the mountains. This past weekend my friend M and I decided to go on a hike, swim, wine trip. The idea was to hike for 2.5 miles to a lake, swim in said lake, then hike 2.5 miles back to the car and go to a local vineyard for a wine tasting.

That was the idea.

Instead we and the 13 other people on the trip wandered around lost for approximately 15 miles in 90 degree heat without ever finding the lake.

We wandered along the white path, the blue path, the white/blue path, the white and blue path (they are all different), the yellow path, and there was a touch of the red path in there as well. I’m surprised that everyone stayed as positive as they did. I’m not saying people were happy with the situation. But it could have been a lot worse than the mild grumblings at the tail end of the group as we solemnly marched through the woods.

The only reason we got out of the woods was another participant took a picture of the map and used his iphone to locate our position with GPS. Iphones typically have spotty service but in the middle of the woods it seemed to work fine. We added to the Iphone ad campaign: “15 people lost in the woods… there’s an ap for that”

For me in terms of personal self-growth, I saw again how I don’t have a lot of patience. I’ve been hiking almost my whole life. The groups from Manhattan are usually made up of people who have never been hiking before. Because of this, the pace is slow with a lot of stops. Eventually my friend and I were irritated enough and moved ahead of the group, allowing us to hike at a faster more enjoyable speed. Plus it gave us time to catch up. That is until we got to a road that wasn’t supposed to be there. The first of a few strange roads. The most frustrating part was sitting in a batch of ferns knowing beyond a doubt that this was the way we had come and having the rest of the group decide that taking the white trail was better. Like I said, patience is something I don’t seem to have a lot of.

I hike with a goal in mind. I tend to walk as quickly up the mountain as I can to the summit. It’s a clear cut success or fail approach. In comparison, my dad hikes for the journey. Whether he makes it to the summit or not, he is out in nature, taking pictures of flowers and insects that I never see because I am sprinting ahead. This past weekend we never got to the lake but the journey was memorable. Part of the reason it was so memorable was because it was difficult. That and by the end dehydration was starting causing us to laugh at anything.