Debut

This past Saturday I made my debut on a Broadway stage in MTC’s “Prayer for the French Republic.”  It’s insane to me to read that line back and know that it’s true—that it actually happened.  That after years of acting, and auditioning, and doubting, and rerouting, that I was able to perform in a show on Broadway. It was something that I had dreaming in my head since I was a little kid,  

It made me reflect on my first ever stage production in first grade or so when my elementary school performed “America Before Columbus” through a company called Broadway Bound, which was led by the late, great Jimmy Nixon.  

I would love to say that I have some awesome story written up detailing the ins-and-outs of the magical weekend, and maybe I will days, months, or years from now after appropriate reflection, but for now, I’d say that what I’m left with is such an unbelievably immense amount of gratitude and appreciation for everyone that made it as special as it was.  

This milestone was made possible my numerous amounts of people.  Literally everyone involved in this production, cast and crew, front of house and backstage—everyone made it a joy.  

It’s not every day you’re able to work on a play once, let alone work on it in some capacity three times, but that’s been the case with this show.  It feels like just yesterday that I was in New York early 2022 to understudy this show off-Broadway at City Center.  It was such a treat to be able to observe it, to learn how a great show can come together, and to watch how audiences absorbed it and were taken by a sprawling and epic chronicle of the Jewish experience.  

Then, towards the end of a school year in which I had spent just about every day substitute teaching, floating in my acting life, finding myself at another professional crossroads, and wondering where I wanted to live and what I wanted to do, I had the opportunity to audition for a production of “Prayer” at Huntington Theater in Boston.  After sending a tape and going through a call back, I turned the page, figuring that that was that and continued with teaching.  And then, one day after finishing up my last class, I received a phone call that revealed that I had gotten the part for the Huntington production.

The opportunity to work at Huntington was such a beautiful experience for me.  It was my first non-understudy show since late 2018, when I had done a play in San Francisco.  It felt like such a blessing and another moment for me to regain some confidence in the work when it had certainly been waning.  I was cast as Daniel, had a great dressing room roommate in Tony Estrella and got to form some wonderful bonds with a great cast and crew.  One of the craziest and most awesome parts of that journey (besides discovering “Stop Making Sense,” the Talking Heads concert film) was witnessing my castmate Nael Nacer go from understudying one of the lead roles (Charles), to finding out he would be portraying Charles during opening (and for the run of the show) in a matter of a few days, to then closing the show and learning he would be reprising the role of Charles on Broadway.  Sheer insanity.

Which brings us to present day.  “Prayer” opened on Broadway on January 9th.  About three weeks later, on the morning of January 27th, I was told by stage management that I would be performing as Daniel for the matinee show. 

All things considered, despite a bit of an adrenaline jolt, I thought I handled the news pretty calmly…

…which is a lie, because I immediately went for a run to shake out the rush that was permeating though my body.  I reached out to as many people as possible to let them know the new circumstances, got my stuff together, and took the train to the theater as early as I could.

When I tell you that from the moment I got into the theater it felt like I was being completely taken care of.  And I must stress that the energy and positivity that permeates through this production feels like a bit of an anomaly.  I’m not saying that I’ve worked on productions that haven’t felt like a safe, constructive, inviting space, but maybe all I’m really saying is is that the way everyone does their part on this show to create that welcoming, loving, “I got you”, type of environment is just special.  Any question I had, there was an answer.  Any help I needed, there was an assist waiting for me.  Did I want to go over anything?  Did I need a vocal warm up?  Did I need to review any blocking?  Entrance or exit help?  It was insane.  But it really was everybody.  And the overwhelming feeling was “We’re gonna take care of you.”  

Before I knew it we were all on stage, loosening our voices, getting the mind and body ready, prepping for the show.  Before I knew it, we heard our 30 minute call and production stage manager, Hodge, announced that I would be making my debut, to which everyone in their respective dressing rooms started yelling and shouting and cheering and clapping, sending me into the stratosphere.  Before I knew it, I was in my temporary dressing room getting pep talks and support from Tony and Nael.  Before I knew it, my face was covered in makeup and my mic situated and ready to go thanks to Lily and Jen, and we were almost at places.  And then before I knew it, we were at places, and I had my stage manager in crime, Ashley-Rose, leading the way to make sure I was all set to go.  Every show I’ve understudied, three in total, have all been with Hodge and Ashley-Rose.  

When the first cue light went off and I entered the stage, thus began the fever dream.  As ridiculous as it sounds, I remember almost nothing of that show.  I could only tell you that my feet were somehow on the ground, somehow moving one in front of the other, and somehow getting from point A to point B, and so on.  Act 1 passed.  I stepped into the darkness (literally) of intermission and wondered how it had passed so quickly. I also miraculously led my stage sister Fran off stage in pitch black, which might have been the true biggest accomplishment all weekend.  Act 2 passed.  When Act 3 began, we were all at the seder table for Passover.  I began to notice the lights.  I looked at all of the characters.  All of my scene partners.  And I looked around, from person to person, and thought to myself:

“What.  The Fuck.  Is.  Happening?”

It really did feel at that moment that I had lost the entire play.  I thought I was on another planet.  I didn’t know where I was.  I didn’t know what any of my lines were.  I was just sort of in awe.  

And then I saw Tony Edwards talking and I began to listen and I began to reorient myself and found myself back where I needed to be with some time to spare before mentioning the karpas, the greens for spring. Greens dipped in salt water. A symbol of the tears shed by our ancestors.

Whew…  

There was another moment later in that scene where I go to open a door and saw a lion emerge, emitting a roar to protect her family.  That was pretty surreal.  I’ll never forget that as long as I live.  

Next thing I know we’re in the last scene and we’re getting our luggage for the final goodbye.  

And suddenly I’m back in darkness, surrounded by castmates, exchanging hugs, getting ready for the curtain call.  

Then the curtain call.  Damn.  Look at all those people out there.  They’re clapping.  They’re crying.  We told the story.  One bow goes by.  Two.  A third.  And then the cast is making space for me to take in the moment and once again I’m shot it into the stratosphere.  What an amazing feeling this is.  Back into the darkness of the wings.  Circling around the stage to get back to my dressing room.  But then as I get to the hall, there is the cast and the crew and everyone is here, everyone, making noise, showing so much love that I wonder how to receive it.  I am overwhelmed.  I am overjoyed.  I am transported.  I remember being on the other side of this when my fellow understudy Lauriel went on four times as two different characters over the span of a few days.  I remember how amazing I felt for her.  Clapping.  Beaming.  Yelling with so much pride.  Reveling in her smile and the happiness after her debut.  This must be how I felt.  It is how I felt.  And then the walk up the stairs to the dressing room.  And finally I was able to take a seat.  And breathe.    

Walking outside some time later and being greeted by so many of my dearest friends was the ultimate blessing, the cherry on top.  It made me so happy to know they were in the audience for such a special moment in my life.  The fun continued with a nice meal afterwards, catching up, talking about the whole experience, fully enjoying each other’s company, so much love in one space.  And then I had to head back to the theater to do it all again!  

When it was all said and done, I was able to perform three times in total—two on Saturday and once on Sunday.  The most invaluable part of getting the two extra reps after the debut was the sensation that I was starting to get more comfortable with each passing show.  And while I am proud of myself that I was starting to find my way little by little, I really do owe it to the cast and crew for being right there with me, helping me the entire way.  

None of this would have been possible without that best cast and without that best crew.  The amount of positive reinforcement and words of encouragement I was getting from everyone was crazy.  To all of you, to the friends, and family, the people I had never met before who I got to speak to after the shows, all of you who sent me messages and voicemails filled with love and support and congratulations…where would I be without you?

I so hope that I have the privilege of performing on these stages again in the future, but for now, I look forward to resuming my post covering two awesome actors, being with my fellow understudies, and doing all we can to continue to support this awesome play and this awesome production.    

I will never forget the moments you gave me; the words of wisdom, alley oops, turntable hilarity, and all of the beautiful memories, which included a whole Gipsy King jukebox warm-up?!  I mean, come on!

Thank you to all of you for giving me one of the best weekends of my life. 

The Ends of Summer...

As a kid, I can remember the ends of summer—how Labor Day marked one of the last remaining moments of freedom before the commencement of another school year.  And even after those recent years since graduating from high school, this day and weekend have always felt like a beginning of sorts or a reset, if you will.  

In April of 2021, I, like I’m sure hundreds of millions of others, searched for meaning.  We were about one year into COVID and in the thick of a constant questioning.  Of existence.  Of threat.  Of ways to move forward.  A compass with a faulty arrow.  I was an actor, having just finished an attempt to house-sit in L.A., while simultaneously trying to determine what it might be like to live there.  I had never seen that city like that before.  From January through March there were, dare I say, freeways without traffic.  A suddenly not so glamorous city that felt devoid of its usual glitz.  For the eight months before that house-sit trial I had moved back home to Seattle—the latest edition in a constant exodus of back-and-forth between there and New York, a city I had lived in for four years leading up to the inception of COVID in March of 2020.  Even then, it always felt like I had been returning home, unsure of where I belonged, what I should do, and where I should go.  This tipping of the scales continued as I drove cross country with a friend from Seattle to New York, only to return back to Seattle later in August of 2021.  I was fresh off of what felt like a panic attack and even thinking and breathing, let alone doing both at the same time, felt like a psychological mountain that I was struggling to climb.  

However, when I arrived in April of 2021 I began to look for a new job.  In no way did I want to have anything to do with the restaurant industry, which seemed to be the default job of the actor in pursuit, and something I had already dealt with in the past.  This time, I looked into a position that I had always been intrigued with, but was nonetheless intimidated by; teaching—potentially as a substitute teacher.  In the middle of that month I began to substitute at a middle school, DLMS 247, in the Upper West Side of Manhattan as an emergency sub.  At this point, in-person teaching was still in flux, with half of the kids in the classroom and the other half at home, the majority present behind a default avatar, yet basically invisible on the screen.  I was so unbelievably nervous that first day for so many reasons.  I had never taught before outside of a camp counselor setting.  I had tutored long ago, but usually one or two kids at a time.  In retrospect, it’s possibly a very good thing that it was only at half-capacity because it served as an opportunity to baby step into the new environment.  

The first day, I’m not even sure I said more than a few words.  To a degree—I was still going through an identity crisis.  Do I belong here?  What should I have them call me?  On top of that—95% of the kids were native Spanish speakers.  They spoke English too, but the idea was that I was supposed to mainly speak in Spanish.  After all, it was called “Dual Language Middle School” 247.  Despite having a degree in Spanish, I felt like an imposter, through and through.  Additionally, I was following in the footsteps of my father, who had been a teacher for 30+ years.  He was admired and beloved by many.  I was stubborn.  I think I had sworn to myself that I was not going to be Mr. Yudin—I wanted to do my own thing.  That first week—I think I tried to use Mr. Chessin-Yudin.  Then Mr. Chessin.  Then Mr. CY.  I tried so many things that I don’t even remember what I ended up with.  What did change, however, was my comfort level being a teacher.  It didn’t feel like a source of embarrassment that I was their Spanish teacher, at times, despite being a full-on gringo and güero, and I didn’t feel so out of place anymore.  Over the next two and a half months I was there every day—filling in for any teacher that needed a break, sixth to eighth grade, and, surprisingly, spending a good deal of the time subbing for dance class.  These were steps that, up until this point, I had never really known, but after a couple of times viewing the example videos, I felt confident enough to show the kids how they were done.  

That school became I something I looked forward to—taking the C train in the morning, heading into class, subbing every subject from Science, ELA, History, Dance, and Gym, a class in which I always used to take the games way too seriously because the whole class’ energy levels would spike after I volunteered to participate in their games.  I used to always work up a sweat and end up wishing I hadn’t.  Wishing I could shower, when there was no shower in sight.  I felt legitimately sad when the school year came to a close.  I’ve always struggled a bit with endings, mainly because I have always feared the next day, when the structure and consistency and excitement disappears and all those questions of direction rear their ugly heads and come back to haunt you.  

During those weeks following the last day of school, those unavoidable questions felt unsolvable.  Day turned to night turned to day and everything looked the same and felt the same and I felt like a man without purpose, without substance or anything to offer the world or myself.  I was wholly unsatisfied, wholly unfulfilled.  I felt worthless.  And this led to that sinking, sinking feeling that only someone who has experienced a severe bout with depression could understand, when it feels like there’s nothing out there that could help you in here.  Clockless mornings.  Shortened days.  There was no way out.  So, I went home again.  I ran away home…again.  I tried to figure it out again and again—still struggling.  And when it seemed like a New York return wasn’t imminent I looked into substitute teaching opportunities again, this time in Seattle with SPS (Seattle Public Schools).  A lot of the same questions and doubts surfaced like: What am I doing?  Is this the right thing to do?  There was also the new reality; that I was entering the school district with which my Dad had spent the vast majority of his teaching career.  A lot of his good friends and former colleagues were still teaching.  Suddenly, that veil of anonymity wasn’t available to me as it was in New York.  

So, in October of 2021, I started my teaching as an Emergency Certified Substitute teacher in the Seattle Public School District.  Save for a few months at the top of 2022 working on an understudy gig in New York, I taught the entirety of the 2021-2022 school year.  There was a whole bunch of good stuff in those nine months, but now is not the time to share those stories.  I was even blessed with the opportunity to revisit those kids at DLMS for several days once I started to get free mornings/afternoons during the understudy job.  Seeing those kids that had been 6th and 7th graders the year before, now as 7th and 8th graders, was a beautiful moment for me.  

At the end of the summer of 2022 I told myself that I might be in Seattle for a while.  With that new mentality I went into the school year with more more focus and determination.  In the last month of the previous school year I began to sub a decent amount at Lincoln High School.  Lincoln was an exciting spot to me for several reasons.  Firstly, it was my neighborhood high school, though it hadn’t always been.  Having grown up in Fremont it wasn’t more than a 20 minute walk and was right around the corner from Hamilton Middle School, which, if you know me at all, provided the stomping grounds for three of the best and most formative years of my life and laid a significant foundation for a vital piece of my identity to this day.  In the late 00’s, Lincoln was still an interim school, essentially the placeholder building you’d transfer to when your school would undergo renovations.  That period for me around 05-08, it just finished serving as Roosevelt High School’s interim site and was transitioning to serving as Garfield High School’s site for, what would be, my first two years of high school.  I was very prepared to go to Garfield, since it was the neighborhood school for me at that time.  Had Lincoln been its own school at that point I probably would have just gone there.  I was prepared to go to Garfield until I wasn’t and ended up going to Ingraham High School, where I continued to deepen the friendships I had established at Hamilton and had the blessing of being taught by many, many truly awesome teachers.  That is another story.  Anyway, back to Lincoln—I felt connected to it in more ways than one and by teaching there it felt like getting several birds with one stone.  It was close and convenient, it was a brand new school (having been recently remodeled and reintroduced) and it gave me an opportunity to live out the retroactive 15-18 year old fantasy of going to a school without doubt or trepidation.  Sometimes, for me, too many choices is not a good thing.  This is the school I would have been zoned to had I been going to high school today (which is also another story).  

During one of those sub days in the spring of 2022, I was asked by a Spanish teacher if I might be available to sub in the coming school year.  She was planning to take a trip abroad.  I told her that I would probably be available to do it.  A month or so later I was told that the trip had been cancelled and that, unfortunately, she was dealing with some health problems and would need additional help beyond the time she had initially asked.  This would now be an assignment for the first three weeks of the year.  Honestly, this scared me.  Not just because there were some AP classes in her curriculum (many of which would go on to take the AP test at the end of the year), but I felt anxious about being the teacher introduced to the kids at the top of a school year.  I worried that I might not be the one for the job and that mentally that might be difficult for them.  Would it be hard to build trust?  Is that something I would seek, knowing they’d be transferred to their regular teacher after a month?  Would they fall too far behind?  Was my Spanish good enough?  Would it be too confusing or complicated?  Ultimately, I agreed to the assignment, and it turned out to be one of the best things I’ve ever done in my life.  Lincoln welcomed me with open arms.  I started by attending the TRI days the week before school began, fulfilled the three weeks, then agreed to help the teacher by coming in just about every Wednesday the rest of the school year.  

My already strong affinity for Spanish grew.  My appreciation and respect for teaching (and teaching Spanish) grew.  I felt like I had discovered a beautiful home and I was so grateful for it.  Grateful to know that on Wednesdays I’d be able to come into that building and see some awesome kids with great energy and do my service to help them, however I could, learn a little bit more Spanish, keep their appreciation for Spanish alive and keep the regular teacher’s ship headed in the right direction.  It didn’t take me long to learn the kids’ names.  It didn’t take long to appreciate the wonderful things they brought to the table.  I did whatever I could to keep their spirits high, to invest in their interests, follow their life trajectories, and reciprocate and/or elevate whatever they had brought that specific day and then string it along when I would return the following week.  What music were they listening to?  What sports were they playing?  What were their plans for the weekend?  Every period had everything, whether that was the laidback AP classes at the top of the day or the barrage of energetic Spanish 3s after lunch.  It was an exercise and crash course in behavior and attitude, psychology and astrology.  30 planets in each class orbiting the Spanish language, sometimes colliding, but usually, almost always, a beautiful thing to witness.  

At the beginning of the year, I was Mr. Chessin-Yudin.  That quickly became Mr. C and Profe C, or when they were trying to crack jokes, Profe Chessin-Yudin, said in a rapid fire way and with some extra oomph and style to keep up with the Spanish rhythm.  I had always worried, when going over the names to present myself as, that I would upset my Dad if I decided to avoid using Yudin.  That’s who he was—Mr. Yudin.  That had been stamped.  I think he even asked me one day what they called me and I tried to avoid the question.  Then, one evening, I had been eating tacos with my Dad and one of the kids I taught came in and said, “Mr. C!” and my Dad glowed, while I returned the hello and tried to go swiftly back to eating.  My Dad laughed and that smile sort of quivered with excitement like it usually does and I slowly, slowly felt that sedated pulse of relief.  As my Dad and I walked out of the taco spot to head to the car he looked at me and joyfully said, “Mr. C!”  I felt as if, in some way, I had received his blessing to follow my own path and yet, I like to think I honored his teaching legacy by investing as much time and energy as I could to make their experience as students memorable and educational.           

All in all, I subbed 150 days with SPS during that school year and more than 50 of those days were spent at Lincoln.  When not at Lincoln I was busy at other middle schools and high schools.  To me I was fulfilling an interest that I had long desired, which was to get to know Seattle Public Schools in more depth.  I think at the end of the day I was able to teach at every middle school, just about every high school, and two elementary schools (John Stanford and B.F. Day, where I had gone).  After every day of teaching I recorded three pages of observations and reactions to what I had experienced.  I was fascinated by every moment, during all the highs and all the lows.  I had very specific intentions for why I did all of that, but that--that is another story and one which I hope and pray I have the strength to share as soon as I can.  The story of Seattle.  The story of Seattle Public Schools.

When the end of the 2022-2023 came to a close, so did my emergency substitute certificate.  It was good for two school years and had been issued to me during a time when there was a more dire need for substitutes.  Jay Inslee, who is currently finishing his final term as the Governor of Washington, elected not to re-issue these emergency certs anymore, citing budget cuts.  I have opinions on this, but at the end of the day, I am grateful that I was able to obtain this certification and teach for the time I was allowed.  The perspective and memories and relationships formed have been and will continue to be invaluable.

I am indebted to this opportunity and want to pay special gratitude to DLMS 247 for providing my first sub teaching opportunity and to Lincoln High School for welcoming me with open arms and trusting in my ability to do the job.  I want to show appreciation to all of the schools that also provided a consistent working space like Hamilton, Meany, Whitman, and Washington Middle School and Ingraham, Garfield, and Ballard High School.  I won’t forget the week teaching seniors at Roosevelt where the energy in the room was so wildly palpable that I thought I was gonna be blasted through the classroom wall.  32-35 seniors, grinning, mischievous, wild, ready to blow the lid off and move on with their lives—staring at me, eagerly waiting, with faces that asked: “What the fuck have you got for us?” and “Who the fuck are you, Mr. C?” 

Or the several week assignments at Washington Middle School teaching ELA and then Spanish later on, down the road.  Witnessing brilliance, witnessing angst.  Resistance and craze.  Indifference and calm.  Style and grace.       

There are too many memories to share.  When it came to be my last couple of days subbing at Lincoln I was definitely a bit sad.  You get that way when you’ve built relationships and it’s time to go.  I think that’s always been the toughest part of teaching, especially when you get really solid with the classes.  Somehow you’ve got to move on.  Well, easier said than done.  I told them that I’d be moving on to do a stage play and ultimately was gonna dive deeper and focus more on acting, which would not likely be happening in Seattle.  A few of them were disappointed, but overall they were so supportive.  It was a bit unbelievable to me.  I don’t know what I expected, but that got to me.  Little did they know that what they had provided during the course of the school year had brought me closer than I ever had been to going back to school to get a masters in teaching with the hope of teaching kids like them again in a fuller capacity.  Not now though…and maybe not ever.  Not full-time, at least.  And I think they understood that.

I owe so much to the Spanish Department at Lincoln, full of teachers that guided me every day and provided a great blueprint for how to get things done at that institution.  The support was unreal.  And, like the kids, provided quite the temptation and incentive to come back and teach due to the amazing community created by such wonderful colleagues.  It felt like a family.  Shout out to Profe Ruggles, who asked me to help her teach throughout the year and who is the soon (if not already) mother of a new baby.  And Profe Arias too, also a soon-to-be father who I found out was my brethren from UW, who also studied in Cádiz, and who also stayed with the same host mom.  Shout out to the new department head Ms. Hathaway for being the rock that held it all together, keeping the energy up every day, and making sure we were all taken care of.  And Congrats to Mr. Weathers on his new path at a different school, creating new journeys in Spanish and Art.  

Lastly, shoutout to all the awesome kids in SPS that I was able to teach these past couple of years.  I know having a substitute isn’t always easy (I certainly had my moments with them when I was in school), but you uplifted me in a way that I could never have expected.  And to the 150 kids from Profe Ruggles class last year, who brought it every day, who floored me with cards full of personal messages, who provided a lifetime of great memories in 50 days, days full of laughter and fun, of patience, cooperation, and the unexpected—ya’ll were quite simply, awesome.  (No I won’t pick a favorite class.  I got love for all of you). 

Here’s to more sports chronicles during prep periods, half-moon waves in the hallway, high fives to you friendly giants, two arms to the sky to praise the above, individual and team Quizlets, fly swatter vocabulary competitions, backpack-free examenes and pruebitas, finger wagging at cell phone use, cell phone use confiscations, AP classroom entering, AP classroom exiting, not-so indiscrete chess playing, slippery class room exiting, words like melocotón and Titicaca (one of you somewhere definitely just laughed at this), and to Wednesdays, which always came and always went, never too long and never too quick.

Here’s a verb and a phrase: extrañar and los echaré de menos.      

That’s all for now.  There will always be more to tell.

But that’s for another story.       

Ms. Vazquez - 8th Grade Dance - DLMS 247 - 2020-2021

Chasing the Unicorn

It’s a bit hard to put into words the magic of the Boston Marathon.  How can you recap a race in which 26.2 miles of terrain are filled to the brim with cheers, screams, yells, amazing volunteers, medical staff, stampedes of runners, supportive spectators made up of friends, family, and those that might not have a horse in the race, but just want to participate in the electricity of the day?

I’m not sure when the goal to run Boston arrived.  Like most things, I just blame Danny, my friend and brother, who really is the impetus for all this marathon running madness.  The story goes, for those who might not know already, is that Danny ran his first marathon in San Francisco in 2018.  I’m not really sure running a marathon ever entered my mind, but he was training for it and had visited my roommate Nate and I in New York and it was cool and inspiring to see how focused and dedicated he was while preparing for the race.  Like most people, I had trouble wrapping my head around the distance.  26.2 wasn’t a number I was familiar with, nor had even come close to running at any other point in my life.  I hadn’t run halves.  I hadn’t really run much to begin with honestly, outside of a few bouts in college and to keep myself active while studying abroad.  But I saw Danny run it and I told myself I had to do that, too.  He gave me a training book that focused on a 12 week, 55 miles max training program and he also told me about a book called “Born to Run,” which followed the Tarahumara tribe and their long history of being some of the world’s most gifted long distance runners.  

The next year, I ran the Brooklyn Marathon despite a horrible, extended counter with ITBS (Iliotibial Band Syndrome) that magically vanished the day of the race (which would be a theme for other races, as well).  The performance was wonderfully undisciplined.  Naturally, I got completely caught up in the adrenalin of my first marathon and came out way, way too quick.  About half-way through I was completely gassed and the repeated laps in Prospect Park, despite being a beautiful day, felt like running a loop through hell.  Nonetheless, the fire had been ignited.  I ran it in 3:21:02 at an average pace of 7:40 per/mile.  I knew I could have run it better, though.  I started to wonder: had I not come out too strong and run a consistent race all the way through, what might my time have been?  No less than a month later, Danny ran his second marathon in Seattle, which immediately spurred me to start looking for an opportunity to run my second one, too.  It didn’t take long–I decided on registering for the NYC Marathon.  

In retrospect, I do wonder what might have been had I run it in 2020 as planned, but as we all know the world and the pandemic had other ideas.  I had returned to Seattle from New York at the end of March and needed an outlet since I was also out of a job.  The free time made me irritable and I needed something that would exercise me physically and mentally.  Not knowing that the pandemic would go on for as long as it did, I began to train and get my body ready for NYC.  The expectation was that the pandemic and COVID-19 certainly wouldn’t last as long as November, which was when the NYC Marathon was slated to take place.  I kept myself busy by running all over Seattle, particularly its many hills.  I felt completely in form and ready to go, but alas, like most things that year, the marathon was canceled.  Still, I knew that ultimately the marathon would happen, I just didn’t know when, so I kept going, kept training, kept staying ready.  Sure enough, the next year I got word that the NYC Marathon was back on and I was more than excited to give it my best shot.  

Yet, I’m not still not sure when the desire to shoot for Boston arose.  I’m tempted to say it was Danny, once again, who introduced me to this guy named Nick Bare, a social media influencer of sorts, whose main forte was working out and accomplishing an extensive variety of fitness goals.  His interest in marathon running sort of paralleled mine and I think it was Bare who mentioned this mystical time that was referred to as a “sub-3”, a Boston qualifier for my age bracket.  So, there it was.  NYC was in my sights and a new time objective…under 3 hours.  

I’ve spoken on how incredible the NYC Marathon experience was before and I’ll always be happy to reiterate that it was one of the single best moments and events I’ve ever been a part of in my life.  Pure magic in every way.  Despite the fact that it was only at limited capacity due to  COVID restrictions and other such factors (33,000 participants instead of 50), I still felt like I was running through a dream.  A sea of runners through five boroughs with anyone and everyone cheering you on.  I thought I had run a great race, but for one reason or another my body started to break down in the last 3-4 miles, forcing me to walk and sending my muscles into shut-down mode about a mile from the finish line.  I managed to run the last little stretch, but didn’t achieve the time nor the goal that I thought I could reach.  I finished with a time of 3:07:59 at an average pace of 7:10 per/mile, an immense improvement from the time before, but still not as good as I knew I was capable of.  

Next in the journey was Missoula, Montana.  By this point Danny and I were all tied up, but his desire to do another marathon was waning, while mine was getting more feverish.  He was getting busier and I think he was noticing that I was getting a bit more psychotic about wanting to qualify for Boston.  I trained as hard as I could, even before the actual training had even started.  I was back in New York at this point and running the subway lines to keep my mind and my fitness schedule occupied.  I had to accomplish the goal this time.  Sure enough, in late June of 2022, at the crack of dawn and with my mom’s hometown as the backdrop, I ran the Missoula Marathon–staying with an awesome group of guys that were also trying to qualify.  The infamous 20 mile mark came once again and my body went into overdrive mode.  I worked as hard as I could to keep it moving and stay with the pace.  In the last few miles, I did start to panic a little bit because many of the sub-3 paced group started to push ahead, but I kept on going and kept on pushing, despite the fact that they had all but vanished from my view.  When I finally made that last turn on Higgins, I emptied the tank.  I knew I was close to the finish line and I also knew I was close to the sub-3 threshold, but I didn’t know how close.  As I got to the bridge I saw my family and saw the time ahead and knew I was going to be able to do it.  I crossed the finish line at a time of 2:59:08 and an average pace of 6:50 per/mile.  I had done it.  I had qualified for Boston.

It’s hard to put into perspective what running all those marathons felt like.  Looking back on it though, there is a certain level of gratitude I have that I was able to develop this affinity for running.  To have been able to find something that stoked my competitive fire and harnessed a focus, while also doing wonders for my physical and mental health, feels like such a gift.  Running has become such a necessary part of my life.  It has allowed me to see places I’ve never seen, both in my hometown and around the world.  Whenever I have the opportunity and privilege to travel, one of the things I look forward to most is running wherever I’m going.  I’ve been lucky to run through beautiful parks in Paris.  Alongside highways in the Dominican Republic.  Promenades in Lisbon.  The searing heat of Atlanta and the humidity of Miami.  You see people that might also be visiting wherever you go or maybe they’re a resident just going for their daily jog.  Either way, you make eye contact, you give a hang loose hand signal, a smile, or you mirror their looks of exhaustion with one of your own, to which an understanding smile sometimes might follow.  Everyone seems to be in it together.

So much hard work went into Boston that, leading up to the training, I wondered how I would approach running the course.  Would I try to keep pushing the limits and attempt to set a PR or would I take my foot off the gas and just enjoy it.  I had only heard such positive things about the race, though everyone did seem to agree that the course itself was quite the challenge.  

“Rolling hills”, I would hear.  

“Lots and lots of rolling hills.”  

“It’s downhill at the beginning.”  

“It’s uphill at the end…but then there’s more downhills.”  

“You need to train for the hills, gotta make sure your legs are strong.”

“But don’t forget–you need to practice running downhill.  People forget that.”

It didn’t take me long to switch my approach from “just wanting to enjoy it” to wanting to try for a new PR.  The only trouble was I got way too ahead of myself.  It went from I think I can do a 2:57 to I think I can do a 2:55.  Then it went from I think I can do a 2:55 to I think I can do a sub 2:53, which would be a NYC qualifier (since I wanted to run NYC again and do it better).  I just figured that since I had reduced my time every subsequent marathon that I’d be able to continue to do so.  I mean, how different could 6:50 per/mile be from 6:40 or 6:40 from 6:33 (an NYC qualifier)?   

In preparation for Boston, I went back to the only training I know, the 12/55, and just like the few times before I made sure to be in solid running shape before beginning the program.  I also planned on incorporating an extra 20 mile run to make sure my fitness would be strong and considered including another one, as well.  Training for the first couple of months went pretty well.  I might have been a hair slower on a few of the tempo runs, but otherwise I was right on schedule.  Then, during one of those super long runs, I tried to incorporate several steep, steep uphills and was able to do it without issue.  At the time, it didn’t seem like my body responded negatively, but during the next week my body started to feel a little off and I noticed a new pain I wasn’t accustomed to feeling.  I think initially I chalked it up to the month-before-race ailments that had popped up for every other marathon, but this felt a little different.  This was my achilles heel.  At the beginning, it felt like fatigue, but as the runs got more challenging the pain intensified and that low-degree pain started to feel more like a grab, until the grab evolved into a vice grip every time my foot landed.  The swelling around my heel and my ankle grew and grew.  After getting professional help via a PT and podiatrist, I agreed to take a week off.  It made me so antsy not to run that it felt like I was going crazy.  To combat the restlessness and attempt to keep the cardio fitness on-par, I went to the gym and tried to mirror the amount of time I would be running by switching to the exercise bike.  After a week off, the swelling went down and I was able to pick up the training plan to complete the last two taper weeks.  I figured I was in a good place and ready for the race. 

It might feel like I’m skipping ahead a bit, but let’s go to the day of the race.  I got dropped off near the expo by my Pops and walked towards the extensive line gathering by the Boston Commons that would be escorted to the buses, which would then be taking us to the Athletes Village at Hopkinton (where the race would begin).  On the bus, I sat next to a guy named Marc, who was completing his sixth Boston Marathon and 23rd overall.  We had an awesome talk that covered all of the marathons he had done, the few that I had done, the Buffalo Bills, the Seattle Seahawks, and the joy and agony of being a sports fan.  

We must have arrived at Hopkinton around or a little before 8AM.  There were so many people and the majority of these first arriving buses were for wave one alone, which would then be separated into eight separate corrals and beginning at 10AM.  The runners were doing all of the things that runners do pre-race and with a lot of time to spare.  Long lines queued the porta potties, swaths of people hovered under the two tents fueling and hydrating, people started to shed their extra clothes that were keeping them warm, and a collective started their stretching routines.  An announcer/mc was keeping us updated and letting us know that at 9:15 the Red Wave would be walking to their corrals.  The energy in the crowd was palpable and a deep fog, which had kept us mired in mystery and anticipation, slowly began to clear.  By this point I had already consumed my last pre-race fuel and had gone to the bathroom for what felt like the gazillionth time.  

I’ve probably already begun to conflate the next couple of things, but the announcement for the Red Wave to start heading to their corrals sounded and the huge crowd began to migrate to the next checkpoint, where we got into about four different sections.  On the way there was also one final opportunity to go to the bathroom ahead near a CVS Pharmacy.  The minutes were winding down, the last of the keep-us-warm clothes were deposited, and we started lining up ahead of the race.  

None of us could really see the start line because there were so many people ahead of us, but we were all checking our timers and phones and smart watches and counting down, internally.  All of the preparation.  All the training.  All that running.  Mental, spiritual, physical, emotional hurdles.  The ups and downs.  To bring us here.  It was 10:00 AM.  The first people at the starting line would be taking off.  The streams ahead would be pushing forward.  Seconds running off the clock.  We craned our heads to learn what we might find.  Some looked down at the ground, at their shoes, at the things that would be taking us to the end, and readied for the person ahead to start moving.  Some held their breaths, while some inhaled deeply and closed their eyes.  Exhaling.  Those directly ahead of us started to move.  We started to move.  Fast walking became a slow trot.  A slow trot became a light jog.  We looked for the starting line, so we could start our timers.  Here it is.  There it was.  And the race began.

The first downhill came almost immediately, sending shockwaves into our legs and feet that some of us had expected (and the unlucky or ill-equipped hadn’t prepared for) and was almost immediately followed by a slight uphill.  It felt like this was the theme for the first ten miles–these steady declines followed by slight inclines and, in the moment, it’s hard to clock exactly how far you’re descending.  In the first nine miles, there’s a 300 foot decline.  This is where that downhill practice comes in handy.  Beyond that, I noticed a never-ending stampede of people after every turn, before and after every hill.  This is what made me nervous going into the race–the fact that everyone around me would be fast, but I knew I belonged.  I might not have been the fastest, but I knew I could hold my own.  I knew people would pass me–that would be inevitable, but I tried to just run my own race.  I figured that if I could stay in the 6:30-6:45 range I would be just fine.  It was a PR pace, but a pace I felt comfortable with.  The potential problem was I also got into the 6:20 range a few times in those first thirteen miles.  The other thing I was aware of in those first several miles was that my body, particularly my legs, didn’t feel optimal.  They were moving and moving fast, but sometimes you can just tell something is off.  There weren’t any signals or shockwaves necessarily, but the lower half lacked strength.  I could feel it and it’s a bit scary to have those thoughts and those fears so early because you have no idea when and where they might come back louder and stronger.  I kept it pushing, though.  At every hydration station I got a cup, alternating between gatorade and water.  

From the jump, the people alongside the course were roaring and going crazy.  It was a supercharged environment and certainly a reason that I felt propelled to keep on moving forward.  There were entire families, kids, grandparents, tents, people grilling, people playing music, people handing out towels, banana slices, orange slices, paper towels, the works.  I was trying to stay focused, but I was also aware of how incredible the atmosphere was.  And again, I kept realizing how little separation there was, in a couple of ways.  The same people that were there at the start were still there miles in and, while there was a widening space for people to navigate, it was still quite crowded.  I also was carrying a couple of fueling gels that I figured I would use at miles six or seven and later on around 23.  The course would already be providing some at 11, 17, and 21.  

Those first 8-10 miles went by so quickly.  I wasn’t laboring to keep pace, but I was still not feeling ideal.  For me, it was all about getting to the next mile at the right time.  Enjoy all of it.  Immerse yourself in the energy and ride the wave.  At miles 10-13 I started to notice my calves trying to communicate with me, but I just wasn’t sure what they were trying to say.  It was almost like these mini lighting strikes that were making me hyper aware of a certain muscle working hard.  I just didn’t know how to respond.  By the end of mile 13 I knew I had run a really solid half (though I seriously doubted if I could duplicate it), but I also knew that I was slowing down a tiny bit—not enough to greatly affect my overall per-mile pace, but enough to know that my body was responding to the signals from the muscles.  However, I almost forgot about it completely around mile 14.  There, the Wellesley scream tunnel, hundreds, if not thousands of students attending the school, provided an uplifting and seemingly never-ending hyperdrive stretch that almost made time disappear.  More than a few of us expressed feelings of sorrow that that stretch had ended due to the sheer energy boost it had given us.

It wasn’t very long after Wellesley that I started to feel my body reacting to the course.  Now those signals being sent by the calves had made their way to my hamstrings.  Again, nothing too serious, but certainly a cause for concern.  So, for the next two miles I tried to change my gait, stride length, and whatever I could to take the pressure and strain off the muscle groups that seemed to be affected the most.  I tried to find my heel more on downhills to help with the landing and my mid-foot on uphills, instead of the balls of my feet.  Even at this point, I started to become aware that my time was beginning to falter.  I was now running miles above my PR pace, but still better than a sub-3, which kept me motivated and positive and kept me moving forward, one foot in front of the other.  Sadly, that over-accommodation to lighten the load only seemed to work in the short-term.  By mile 15-16, right as I was beginning to enter the rolling hills of Newton, my body began to fall apart.  These weren’t just signals anymore and this wasn’t just tightening, this was full-on cramping.  I did whatever I could to keep moving, even as the pace fell further and further behind.  I kept trying to ease the tension on one muscle group, but it didn’t take long before another muscle group started to react in response.  The calves went first.  Then it was the hamstrings.  Then it was the groin.  Then it was the lower part of the quads.  I felt part of my legs cramp and spasm that I didn’t even know about.  Finally, I had to come to a complete stop, an action that I always tell myself I can never do.  

I tried stretching the muscles on my own.  That worked for a second.  I tried walking, but even that was unbearable, at a certain point.  I stopped in a medical tent and immediately regretted it, visualizing my time spiraling out of control.  I asked if they could give me a sped-up version, so they sprayed biofreeze on my calves and hamstrings.  I left the tent and pushed forward.  I just couldn’t get going for more than a quarter-mile before it would go back into spasm.  There was one moment where my hamstrings grabbed like a seizure and my whole legs pulled up, so much that I had to basically spin around and lie on the sideline.  I tried to raise my legs to stretch my hamstrings, but then another muscle started to cramp.  Three unbelievably nice people; Justin, Julian and Genevieve, came to my rescue.  Julian helped me stretch my legs, while Julian and Genevieve talked me through the cramping.  I was probably down for a few minutes, at least.  Like many of the other people I had passed by to stretch my muscles, they asked if I needed any additional help and support, if I needed water or food or anything else.  At this point, the rain, which had stayed around earlier and longer than people had expected, started to get stronger.  It all felt very symbolic.  A storm had arrived and all the while I had to come to terms with a new reality–the timing was now irrelevant.  The only thing that mattered was finishing the race.  

The perspective change was necessary, but it certainly didn’t make things any easier.  I felt stuck on the hills that were alternating up and down (rolling you might say), triggering opposing muscle groups.  I was still 8-9 miles away.  Every uphill would cause one muscle to cramp.  I’d stretch.  Walk it out.  Then a downhill would come and antagonize something else.  I stopped in a second medical tent.  This was for much longer.  I still wanted a sped-up version, but I knew that without a deeper stretch or some type of massage, I’d be screwed.  The medical staff was extremely helpful and, in a weird way, I was grateful that they could see my muscles visibly shaking in front of them.  I think you get to a point where you think that all of these ailments only exist in your own mind like we’re all just making a big deal out of nothing.  But to see my hamstring being stretched and then my lower quad start to throb and spasm and see the staff member acknowledge and witness it too, made me feel like I wasn’t going completely crazy.  Those three groups went back and forth for a while until finally they calmed down.  I took some deep breaths and tried to get my head back in run-mode.  I expressed my deepest gratitude and told them I intended on going back out there, but even then, the guy who massaged the cramps still had to get a co-sign and release from the head doctor.  Luckily, he gave me the OK.  Truth be told, I was going to try and go back out there, regardless.  

I couldn’t even remember how much time had passed since everything had gone to shit, but ironically it was a little after that second tent that I got to the top of Heartbreak Hill, around Mile 21.  It felt like so much time had passed and also no time at all  This was another symbolic moment because, to some degree, I knew the rest was downhill, but it also posed a threat because going downhill would almost certainly raise the muscle demons again.  Still, five miles to go seemed way more reach in than nine miles.  

The last five miles was a heightened continuation of the incredible spirit that the entire course provided.  I was still cramping, still laboring, but was able to manage and push-through via a mix of gimp-running, stopping, walking, and stretching.  When the problems first arose I think I felt a medley of disappointment, frustration, and defeat, but when the issues continued to a lesser degree, I tried to just smile through it and stay positive.  It might have gotten the best of me time-wise, but I was determined to conquer the course, in any case.  Luckily, the last couple of miles were long, straight stretches.  I was still cramping and had to pull up several times to stretch and transition to a walk, but at least I was picking up the pace well enough for a slow, slow run.  

Finally, I got to the home stretch, which consisted of a straight away, a right, and then a final left down Boylston.  When I got to that point of the race I started to speak to myself out loud.  I needed to be able to hear what I was saying, to keep me going.  I had to stop and stretch one more time during that straight away, but when I made that final right I began to yell, “Keep fucking going!  Keep fucking going!”.  I told myself that I wouldn’t stop so that I could stretch, despite my muscles crying for me to stop.  I wouldn’t stop running until I crossed that finish line.  The crowds were roaring.  My dad was yelling “Go Josh Go!”  I turned that final left on Boylston and saw the finish line ahead.  

“Don’t stop until you finish!””

“Keep fucking going!”

“Keep fucking going!”

“C’mon, Josh!”

“Let’s go, Josh!

“C’mon!”

“Keep fucking going!”

“You got this shit!”

“Don’t you dare fucking stop”

“Keep going!”

“Keep going!”

My muscles were grabbing, trying to pull me down and pull me back, sending their final shockwave attempts searing through every part of my leg, but it was too late and I wasn’t listening anymore.  There was the finish line.  There it was.  There it is.  I had done it.  Despite everything, I had finished the Boston Marathon.

Perspective can be as interesting as it is necessary.  A marathon is a roller coaster of emotions.  Three days after the fact, I have taken time to reflect on everything that has transpired and still, the overwhelming feeling that remains is one of deep, deep gratitude.  I got to run the Boston Marathon.  It took a ton of work to get there and getting there in and of itself was not only a privilege, but also a tangible sign that hard work pays off.  It is true that I had a different idea of how it would go and an expectation that I would “do” and perform better, but that didn’t happen and that’s OK.  I am proud that I was able to finish, despite intense adversity, and that I was able to come away from the event with the only perspective that could possibly make sense, a solely positive one.  In a way, I think going through those hurdles for the second half of the race gave me opportunities to interact with the spectators and volunteers in a way I might not have seen had I just blown through the course.  I was able to have conversations with them, some long and some small, and on as many occasions as I could thank them for their help, their support, and their words.  I had my aching muscles to keep me in the present, but I had all of those wonderful people to thank for keeping me on my feet and on solid ground.  In that sense, what more I could have asked for.  It made it truly unforgettable.  Undoubtedly, there have been points after the race that I have tried to diagnose when and where I might have gone wrong.  In the coming days I’ll be excited to go back to the drawing board to see what things I could do differently and improve upon, but I’m still happy and content right now to revel in the moment and appreciate all of the truly good things that will come from the experience.  I know that I will qualify for Boston again and I know that I will run another Boston marathon very soon and I know that the next time I will be more prepared.  I, for one, can’t wait.

the spider

i saw a spider

stare back at me
in the late night
still with its 
8 eyes
waiting for me to
make the next move
on high alert 
i stared back 
stopped reading 
about orca whales
too lazy to kill it
too lazy to save it outside
like my mom teaches me
i stared back 
and watched the spider
get bored with me
go off behind the shades
and disappear from view

i watch the spider

in the middle of its web
that takes up 
the whole window
architectural divinity 
a masterpiece
bored of people watching
bored with bug watching
fat after days of killing

when i step outside 
sometimes
i blow on his home
watch him stay 
or watch him go 
up high as he avoids threat

i’m a big man
and you’re just a spider, 
i whisper 

i’m a spider 
and my web is better 
than anything 
you’ve ever done
and anything 
you’ll ever do
he whispers

codon wheel

do you really know
or do you just think 
confidently—
while my eyes stumble
on rectangular shapes
glazed over pixels 
like rainbow donuts
lost in the high 
of an algorithm
junkie
swaying like a 
fiend doing 
sober tai-chi
someone in the up-above
of the up-above
must be laughing at me
until the water trickles 
down their nose
pointing fingers
sign-language
for man has fallen

the crack in the wall

The worst part of blacking out is the not-remembering.  It is not the lack of place.  It is not the lack of knowing the instrument, which is an extremity.  That piece of knowledge cannot be detached, neglected, avoided or forgotten.  It’s the moment before.  It’s the lack of examination, computation and the disappointment one feels when they can replay everything except for what had poisoned the state of mind, causing it to respond in the way that it had.  

Does embarrassment bring more shame when you have the fossil, but not the genealogy?  I stared at the wall and wondered if it would move.  If I could move it.  I wondered if there was a back or an ending as I stared it down like it had been taunting me.  I remember the voice from the floor below.  I remember the unshakable being behind that voice.  A voice that knew shaking and trembling and young men that remained young, scared of growing.  I could not hear the yell that accompanied the terrified fist thrown into a defenseless opponent and surface that did not swing back.  Tinnitus.  

The black cloud in my mind, thickening and evolving, now a growing red pulse.  Flashing.  Blinding.  The blinding red pulse spreading in my brain, tightening around my eyes—empty sockets, temples, all the way down until it settled into my throat, like a vice grip, in my throat where there should have been air.  

When time becomes black, how fast before it turns to white?  I stared at the wall, which was no longer a wall but an indented, hollow surface.  The space cracked in front of me.  Dusty.  There was foam behind it that had kept the house warm.  Someone told me it could be potentially hazardous.  Maybe it had asbestos.  Maybe my head had been slowly filling with asbestos.  Maybe my brain had been molding.  Maybe I hadn’t just done what I did.  Maybe I hadn’t just done what I did.  I promised I would never do what I did.  I promised I would never do what I did.  Maybe the cracks in the wall hadn’t fallen to the floor.  Maybe she wasn’t downstairs to hear everything.  Maybe the dust from the wall could be vacuumed up and thrown away, revisionist history.  Maybe I hadn’t gone into the room and found myself on the floor.  Maybe I hadn’t gone into the room, engulfed in the spirit of the independent soul who had grown to weather storms.  The one who continued sailing and the one who harnessed the wind.  Maybe I hadn’t collapsed into a body, now inverted, a shame deepening further and further inside—a white shirt riddled with bullets and the sinking stain widening, hemorrhaging, internally bleeding.  Maybe the trembling from the floor above was a morse code to the host below.  

What scared me even then was when she came up and saw me there, kneeled down to embrace me, and attempted to quiet a weakening storm.  Could she feel my shame?  Could she feel the oath I had broken and solemnly swore never to become?  Could she feel all of those apologies and my wayside words and was she suddenly aware of all of the signs—all of those moments brushed off as incidental, that couldn’t have possibly culminated into what was now.  An echo.  

I believe there are people that transcend and when she listened, having not seen the dark mark on the way up, I wondered if it was oblivion that had allowed her to sleep peacefully at night.  The oblivion found in a half glass full—the cycle would not and could not repeat itself: “it would not”, “you are different”, “he was different”, right until I guided her to the stairs, like leading a blind woman to the point of finally seeing, pointed to the spot and showed her:

“This.  This is what I did.  This is what I have done.”

If a picture is a thousand words then what is in a breath?

I could not look at it and all she could do was sigh.  She tried to still me, each exhale another Reiki movement to rid me of my exorcised demons that had charged my soul.  I crawled back into the room and found myself in a pool once again.  Eyes squeezed tight trying to eradicate reality from bad dreams, each second passed a haunting etched in stone.  

Yet she walked down the stairs to continue doing what she had before being summoned.  And I wondered, as she neared the end of the steps, did she stop to take notice of the original crack in the wall?  Did it still look the same?  Did she stop that night to hear its words?

She finished cleaning up so she could get ready for bed, turning off the lights one by one.  Two apples on the dining room table.  

[7/17/22]

---

For a while there I don’t think I noticed it.  There’s a few cracks in the place I call home, signs of wear-and-tear, paint where it shouldn’t be and other places where it should.  I think the two stairwells have made me stronger and for others maybe it’s made them weary.  I used to rush down those stairs early in the day and lumber back up at the day’s close and, for a time, when the days felt longer and those individual moments of wonder and recognition felt complex and profound, I think that patched up hole-in-the-wall used to take a life of its own.  I can remember when it was a more open wound and the tears of my mother’s arms had not addressed it.  It was a scar with no clothes to conceal it, visible for every visitor to take their time with it like an exhibit at a family history museum.  Come to think of it, on those occasions when we did have a gathering of friends or family I’m not sure anyone said anything, but it was the elephant in every room, in the entire home.  Not quite the fuzzy feeling of “Brooks Was Here” or a “So Was Red” as in Shawshank.  There were no words to symbolize the sign except, maybe, to signify that there used to be a more frequent inhabitant, a more volatile but no less loving walker of rooms and climber of steps.  I do not know the history behind that fist, that hole-in-the-wall, that plastered crack that has re-opened over time.  We do not talk about it, but we know that it is there.  It, for better or worse, is impossible to ignore. 

[7/11/22]

live numbers / numbers live

when you find yourself scrolling
familiar and unfamiliar
faces
people you remember 
and don’t—
there are those [of]
memories past 
whose beings you grasp,
just out of reach,
always yet always
one call
away

i have not been able to delete them
these ten numbers relating
to these names
of teachers
of friends
of family members
maybe i fear the permanent erasure
that that might be it 
forever

because they are still here
still here in my phone
names attached to memories 
attached to spirits attached to voices
that i worry will tease me
like a dial tone

in my heart they are not 
flat lines
in my dreams 
they come to visit me
so while i walk 
the earth they graced
i’ll keep them in my phone 
where they remain 
here to stay

Cruz & Coco

I first taught at Dual Language Middle School in the Upper West Side of New York city in April of 2021.  It was my first foray into substitute teaching, and actually, in any type of teaching for that matter.  It was completely by chance—not the teaching part, but finding an opening at that school.  I was really supposed to start in February or March of 2020, but we all know what happened around that time.  

I remember those beginning days to be incredibly nerve-wracking.  Like most new job environments, I had a cold case of imposter syndrome.  Did I belong there?  Would I be good?  Would I be accepted?  Would they like me?  And in this instance:  Did they know my dad was a teacher?  Would I be as good or effective as he was?

Looking back—during that first week—it feels like I barely uttered a word.  I could tell right away that the job description of subbing was a quickly changing landscape, as most of the classes I was “filling in” for were being taught by the actual teacher, just in a remote capacity.  I was there to make sure they were logged in to their Google classrooms and participating in the presentations and not getting distracted listening to YouTube (they were), surfing the web (they were), or ten different tabs (it might have been 20).  In other words, I was tasked with—well…an impossible task.  

Over time, however, I started to settle in and I like to think I got the hang of it, “it” being this particular form of subbing, as well as I could have.  It was not without its challenging moments—I struggled with a few classes, as I couldn’t get the hang of pulling everyone’s focus and some days I left school feeling utterly defeated.  And to think—this was with about half the normal attendance, since many kids [and their families] elected to stay home during the pandemic.

I was particularly drawn to one of the sixth grade classes.  There were only about 10 kids, but all of the personalities were represented.  They bickered back and forth, they laughed together and at each other, they sulked, and they ate Takis.  They ate Takis like it was going out of style.  An ecosystem of bubbling minds.  Some days two kids in particular joined forces to form an uncontrollable tsunami of distraction, literally doing everything but stay on task, stay in the classroom, or finish work.  Remember, this was April 2021.  They hadn’t been in school for an entire year and their last full year had been as 4th graders.  

A month into my journey there, one of those two kids forming that tsunami left the school, and, in turn, devastated his best friend who was staying behind.  His name was Cruz.  It took a while for Cruz to get out of his funk; after all, it’s never easy to lose your best friend or partner-in-crime in any scenario, especially under those particular circumstances, in which he was already in a limited social setting.

The good thing was—he did move on, and, sensing the lack of a shared dominating force, Cruz took on his role as the lone alpha.  By himself, he still found opportunities to create a tsunami of his own and now, he roamed around his new territory—looking for kindred spirits and potential competition.

He met his match in Coco.  Coco knew where she stood in the power hierarchy, right on top, just choosing to go about her business in an alternative fashion.  Even when Cruz had his best friends with him, so did she.  And she had more, and was always up to the challenge.  Cruz was Dominican.  So was she.  He could control the gravity of the class.  So could she.  Was it as black and white as this veiled back-and-forth being a substitute for some twisted, blurred sort of affection?  Who knows.  It’s hard to tell from my point of view.  I know it was hard to tell when I was in 6th grade.  

One day in early June, the kids were working on an assignment from one of their other classes.  At this point, I had filled in for pretty much every other teacher.  A mix of co-teaching, monitoring, proctoring, covering, and most of all…making sure they made it to their next class safe-and-sound and in one piece.  I vaguely remember them working on an art project in which they they needed to create and design (in scintillating, colorful fashion) their own shoe.  They were having fun.  On their best behavior.  Attendance was easy.  Think of an early period on a Friday.  Not too close to lunch.  Not too close to the end of the day.  The ideal attentiveness on full display.

As a reward for doing such good work and staying focused I asked if they wanted to hear some music.  Naturally, they all said yes.  And naturally, they shouted out their suggestions.  Coco exclaimed, “Bad Bunny!”, to the instant dismay of Cruz.  “Don’t nobody wanna listen to Bad Bunny—he’s [*under his breath*]…gay.”  Everyone’s eyes turned to me.  I had heard what he had said—he didn’t exactly say it quietly.  “I didn’t mean it like that…he’s not…he’s just weird…I don’t like him, so we not listening to him,” Cruz continued.  A couple of other names were mentioned, ranging from Billboard hits, Cruz’ opposing reggaeton suggestions, to Bob Marley.  It was pretty split down the middle, creating a seemingly bigger divide between Coco’s side and Cruz’s.

Finally, I decided to just take matters into my own hands.  I played a song I had heard in my neighborhood all the time, when I initially moved to New York and lived in my first year-lease apartment on 184th and St. Nick in Washington Heights.  The song was called “Medicina de Amor” (Love Medicine) by Raulin Rodriguez.  If you’ve never heard of it, listen.  It’s such a wonderful piece of music and, for me, it takes me back to living in the Heights.  It transports me to a time and space.  A simpler time.  I can’t even describe it and appropriately do it justice.  It just reminds me of huge swaths of people, families, vendors, colleagues, friends, and an entire community living and breathing life outside on their streets…on their blocks.  The song is immediately recognizable for its opening—a magical plucking solo on the guitar taking us to the world of bachata, crooning, courting, and professing one’s love.  

When I put the song on, you should have seen these kids’ faces.  Even if they didn’t “know it, know it” , they knew it and none more than Cruz, whose face instantly lit up from the back of the room, a man possessed, as he started to slow step bachata back to his seat at the head of the class.  After making it to his seat he came up to me to shake my hand, as if somehow, by the grace of the musical gods, I had selected exactly the song he needed.  “My dad used to listen to this song when he was drunk,” he said, and before I could process the weight of a statement said so calmly, Wilbert closed his eyes and started strumming his air guitar in tune with the song.

The great thing about “Medicina” is how quickly it pulls you in at that beginning section and how it teases you and teases you before Raulin finally starts to sing.  It’s almost an entire minute.  It’s tantalizing.  The feet can’t help but step.  The hips can’t help but move.  The heart can’t help but cry out.  Meanwhile, even though I was captivated by Cruz’ sudden transformation, I saw Coco try so so hard to deny the emotion, catchiness, and familiarity with the song.  Sure, she was eye rolling at Cruz, but she couldn’t help but be engulfed in the song’s supernatural aura.

Then, on cue:

Medicina de amor, quiero de ti // Love medicine, I want you

porque ti eres la mujer // because you are the woman

que me puede curar // that can cure 

mi cancer de amor // my love cancer

I’m not sure I’d seen anything like it—all ten kids—moving!  Working.  Fluidly.  Seamlessly.  Cruz with his hand clutching his heart.  Coco following along, but trying everything in her power not to give in.  The song had its desired effect, injecting good feeling, easy vibrations, and distilling, if only just, some of the tension and overzealous completion that the opposing alphas had brought with them.

My time, however, was running out.  As the song was coming to a close, I needed to keep the energy going in the right direction, so I asked Coco if she had another artist.  She thought for a moment and said, “Prince Royce”, who I had only knew a few songs from.  I asked her which song and she continued, “Recházame” (“Reject me”).  Everyone appeared to be cool with that choice, even Cruz, so I played it shortly after “Medicina” finished, short enough after to where there wasn’t too much dead time in between and sure enough, the bachata guitar came back to life and the shift began.  Coco, more animated this time, and starting to sing along with Royce and with her friends, who also knew the song.  

Ayy, rechazame //  ayy reject me

es que no puedo aceptar tu amor // it’s because i can’t accept your love

ayy, olvidame // ayy forget about me

aunque nos duela hay que aceptar ese dolor // even though it hurts us one must accept the pain

How can I paint this picture?  

With “Medicina”, people knew it, moved to it, and were familiar, but only Cruz was being outwardly vocal.  With “Recházame”, more began to percolate.  The Coco coalition added to the vocalizations and even the guys, who might have been shy to show it, moved along.  The shift and next wave had begun to take shape.  Meanwhile, they were still adding colors and detail to their shoe sketches, even as the song started leveling up and culminating with every subsequent hook.  

The issue was, I would have time for one more song and I only had a few minutes left before class was finished.

…

In my first year in New York living uptown I used to hear people play music on the subway all the time.  It always seemed like they’d get on with me at the 181st or further down, closer to 145th or 125th on the A train right before the long break from the next stop at 59th Columbus Circle.  My favorites were the guitar players—a lot of the times strumming their favorite acoustic guitars, offering corridos (Mexican ballads) or their renditions of other tunes in Spanish.  One of these days a young guy came on.  The doors close.  *BING BONG*  And he started playing his guitar.  A wonderful, smooth velvety melody, which would be “Darte Un Besto” (“Give you a kiss”), also by Prince Royce.    

…

Amarte como te amo es complicado // to love you like i love you is complicated

pensar como te pienso es un pecado // to think about you how i think about you is a sin

mirar como te miro esta prohibido // to look at you the way i look at you is prohibited

tocarte como quiero es un delito // to touch you like I want is a crime

When I played this subsequent song in that class it did its job, maybe to a fault because at this point they stopped paying most of their attention to the sketches and switched it to the song. 

Almost every single kid:

Ya no se que hacer // i don’t know what to do anymore

para que estes bien // so you can be okay

si apagar el sol // if i have to turn off the sun

para encender tu amanecer // to ignite your dawning

falar en Portugues // talk in portuguese

aprender a hablar francés // learn to speak french

o bajar la luna hasta tus pies // or bring down the moon to your feet 

The whole class together:

Yo solo quiero darte un beso // i only want to give you a kiss

llenarte con mi amor el alma // fill up your soul with my love

llevarte a conocer el cielo // take you to meet the sky

quiero que no te falte nada // i don’t want you to miss anything

How can I paint this picture?

Hearing this for the first time on the train and being completely taken by it then — the guy had probably performed it hundred of times, knowing there would always be that one person on the train that had never heard it before, that would be undone by its majesty.  A man.  A song.  A guitar.  A train.

Watching this class unfold.  Exist.  Crest.  Trough.  Weaving their words, feelings, emotions.  This wonderful group of young kids, living, being, floating on their magic carpets on a sunny Friday afternoon.  A moment in time.

The song ended.  They started packing up.  It was time to go to the next class.  Coco and Cruz, sedated by a Bachata love potion.  Alleviated adversaries.  

For now.  

elementary school poem

i am happy to be home
i was sad to be lonely
[on a scale of 1-10, 1 being not 
very depressed, 10 being 
very depressed
how depressed are you]

sometimes i walk and get lost
i spend a lot of time
dreaming, day and night
i want to be liked
[do you find yourself 
feeling restless, irritable, or anxious]

i get mad easy 
i have trouble focusing
i don’t trust lots of people
sometimes i see bad
things happening and i
close my eyes to 
make them not happen
and i feel
sad that i saw them happen 
and i feel scared of dying

the Anti-stimulant pro-Depressant

something about coffee nowadays
makes me cry (sad)
the same way
normally crowded streets 
(empty)
make me happy
somewhere, everywhere
people in a corner
still, when they should be moving
silent (quiet) when they should be talking
vacant
directionless
turning the pages for meaning
scanning the meanings for feeling

the habit of scratching
the back of my head 
[and] to find nothing 
(and) itching the head of my back 
to (find a) [hollow] space 
with no switch
to turn on a hollow hard-drive 
with no battery
to realize a hollow body

[happysad had sappy sadhappy
happy had sappy sad sappy
happy=sad=happy
sad happy sad]

wishful sleeping

i wish i was sleeping
but my body
must be afraid to sleep
for as long as it seems
to desire
i go off to bed
earlier in the night
the night darkens
earlier in the day
the day begins
earlier in the night
my sadness 
is confused
laying down feels better
than standing up 
to light
where has the light 
gone
anyway
quiet makes me sleepy
noises
make me long for quiet
maybe quiet 
is the looking for
looking for
the darkness
hearing all its whispers
sleep
sleep
sleep
sleep

The Race

Prologue

This past Sunday I ran in the 50th NYC Marathon.  It really felt like I had had this day and this moment in my mind since I first started considering running a marathon at all, especially since I moved to New York in 2016.  For a long time I had been a pretty casual runner, but the only “race” I had ever taken seriously was the “Run With Hart” 5K when Kevin Hart was doing his “Let Me Explain” tour and had stopped in Seattle.  I was set on beating all of the competition, but mainly just set on beating Kevin Hart.  I dabbled in a couple of cross country practices in high school, ran sparingly during college—though I did run frequently in Cádiz when I studied abroad.  If you ever have the chance to visit there, you’ll see why.  There was no other choice, BUT to run along “La Caleta.”  Now truth be told, if you want to blame anyone for my running, blame my brother Danny Schmidt.  I feel like his running of the SF Marathon awoke a fire within me that I didn’t know was there.  

Initially, I wanted to run the 2019 NYC Marathon, but didn’t get accepted via the lottery and was too late to run for a charity.  Then, the original plan was to run the Seattle Marathon with Danny that year, but after getting an understudy role in NYC that conflicted with the Seattle date, I elected to run the Brooklyn Marathon through NYC Runs.  While I did appreciate how well everything was organized, I was a little underwhelmed with the course.  It’s hard to compare anything to the NYC Marathon, course-wise, because it’s so iconic and all the terrain you go across is made up of new places that you don’t revisit.  The Brooklyn Marathon was incredibly repetitive.  Going back and forth on Eastern Parkway, up and down Ocean Ave, and then looping around in Prospect Park for what seemed like hours.  My first marathon had some interesting circumstances, but rarely can you plan the perfect marathon, a theme I will always allude to.  Leading up to it I hoped to just do well enough, but didn’t know what to expect.  I was so afraid going into it because my body was not responding well. at all.  Despite working out, doing plenty of strength training, and running 4-5 times a week—sometimes right before a gym work-out, my IT-band was bothering me constantly and it became extremely painful and uncomfortable.  Somehow though, the day of the race, I managed to run through it—though it would be something else that would prove to be my biggest obstacle.  

After two marathons, the biggest takeaway I have is to control what you can control and the greatest thing I’ve learned is that that mantra is way easier said than done.  During that first race, I was so caught in and juiced up by my adrenaline that I went so hard the first 10-13 miles that I was burnt out by mile 16 (probably before, honestly).  That formidable wall that everyone speaks of at mile 20 came a whole helluva lot earlier.  To make matters worse the early wall came right I was beginning my loops in Prospect Park, so it felt like an eternity.  That being said, I completed it unofficially in 3:18:03 and with an official time of 3:21:03.  Since GPS is a little flimsy, let’s go with the official time.  So, what should i have learned after that go-round?  Well…that discipline will do all it can to evade you.  And that despite the discipline it takes to do 12-18 week running programs in preparation for a marathon, the discipline it takes to run a complete, solid, and sound race on race day is incredibly hard to sustain.  

Fast forward to this year.  2021.  NYC was intent on resuming their marathon schedule after cancelling last year’s due to the pandemic.  I was readying to do one of several marathons, but had to curtail training when I got the official news.  I still ended up running 1600 miles last year.  In 2020 I was particularly drawn to participate in NYC because it would be the 50th anniversary.  To do such an iconic race with so much history in its bicentennial year became an obsession.  When I started ramping up training again and after the date had been confirmed for 2021, my sights were set.   

Fast forward again to Sunday morning, the morning of November 7th.  The morning of the race.  A city so excited and eager to resume regular activities.  To get back to the norm.  To celebrate and unite as an entire community.  When I arrived in JFK at 6AM and made my way to Whitehall Terminal (Staten Island Ferry), I saw periodic messages illuminated along the freeway announcing the NYC Marathon and warning of road closures.  I was giddy.  I could feel the electricity from jump street.  When I arrived at the terminal and started to walk in the doors along with hundreds, thousands of others trying to catch the 7:00AM departure, it felt like everyone was together as one.  It was great to speak to people while waiting to get on and then walking in the the big crowd as the ferry doors opened.  Learning everyone’s histories.  First-timers.  Veterans in the game.  Looking at everyone’s different gear.  Different shoes.  Pre-race snacks.  A universal excitement among us.  Everyone had everyone else’s back.  And the continued along the bus ride through Staten Island and in the race village when we got to Fort Wadsworth.  Different languages and people hailing from all over the world, despite a travel ban that had restricted so many international runners from participating.  This year’s haul was 30,000.  Normally it’s 50,000!

I tried to settle in and calm myself down in the minutes before heading into my corral.  I probably drank too much water, but figured it would be better to err on the side of caution.  The last thing you wanted to be during the run was dehydrated, especially during the race.  After taking another bathroom break (anxiety in full swing), Corral C made its way to the bridge.  We collectively shook when the cannon blasted to release the professional runners and waited to begin our own journey.  

Going into this race here’s what I knew.  The biggest incline was immediate—the first mile of the Verrazano Bridge.  Due to the adrenaline it was easy for people to run it too fast, so it was advised to run it slower than one’s respective goal pace.  Miles 3-15, which were mainly in Brooklyn, also were advised to be run conservatively.  A little off goal pace, so that after the bear of a bridge at mile 15 or so, you were off mark slightly, but had enough energy to make up time in miles 16-20, the stretch along 1st Ave in Manhattan.  Miles 20-22 in the Bronx were known as areas with smaller crowds and the real test would come in miles 22-26 or 23-26, the last 5K, where you had ascended the gradual incline of 5th Ave and conquered the ups and downs of Central Park.  This is where you’d show what you were made of.  I replayed this info in my head so many times.  I felt like I knew the course.  A recipe to do great things, right?  Well…let’s find out.

The Race 

When I started running up the Verrazano Bridge I was looking at my phone often to check if my pace was correct.  There were so many people around me.  Heavy breathing going up the incline, but people were locked in!  My favorite acting teacher, Karl Bury, always had said, “Keep your eyes on your own paper” and in this instance, I did not.  I was running too fast and expending valuable energy in fold because it was a fast pace up a bridge/incline.  So that was my first mistake.  Since you begin to descend the bridge going into the first neighborhood in Brooklyn, I didn’t overexert myself during that segment, but that first mile, in retrospect, probably bit me in the ass later on.  Miles 3-8 were awesome as the pack went through Dyker Heights, Bay Ridge, Sunset Park, Carroll Gardens, and Boerum Hill, before getting into Downtown Brooklyn.

At mile 6 I saw my first familiar face, Kait, one of my dear friends from Seattle who is the partner of another one of my dear friends and brothers, Spencer.  Seeing her at mile 6 was such a nice boost because up until then and even a little after I was in pack mode (still going too fast), looking at all the people, listening to all of the music, looking at the sky and the buildings—immersing myself completely while trying to snag every cup of water and gatorade I could get my hands on, and despite learning with every subsequent mile that I suddenly needed to pee, but not wanting to stop because I kept telling myself that every second mattered.  Because it did.  Finally I couldn’t hold it any longer and rushed into a porta potty, relieved myself, and surged forward.  Big mistake number two.  Already going too fast in BK, I decided to try and make up the lost time from peeing.  Around mile 8 came Downtown Brooklyn and that shit was awesome!  As the roads started to wind a little bit and the separate race corrals began to converge, so did the energy—felt like the music and the crowd noise got louder and louder!  This whole stretch was so beautiful and gorgeous and the environment and city around us seemed to engulf us in love and speed and breath and wonder.  As we embarked in a healthy stretch through Lafayette Ave the streets seemed to narrow.  The trees covering the sky and brownstones embracing us all the way while the crowds were so close to you—it almost felt like they were on top of us—but in the best way.  Still, I pressed on, still going too fast, and burning precious fuel in the process.  I then saw Hannah, the Brooklynite, who I have known since the early Hamilton Middle School days, who was with a big group.  She and her group were so pumped up that I had to give her some dap before I made my way into Williamsburg.  

I might have started to slow a bit through Williamsburg, but not too far off the pace I was going or the pace I was supposed to be following.  Whatever the pace was, it was still too fast.  I began to see the Hasids lining and roaming the streets.  A few of them were watching, but met of them were trying to communicate to members of their community across the street.  I think this whole marathon thing was just one big inconvenience for them.  One of my favorite visuals was further ahead, when there was a slight break between running packs, two Hasidic men waddled hurriedly, their payots flowing, racing to get to the other side.  The crowds thickened again around McCarren Park in Williamsburg before the subsequent stretch in Greenpoint.  Who am I kidding?  At this point my pacing was completely out the window.  I was fully enveloped in the experience.  There were nice stretches in Greenpoint and I was impressed again at the crowds and the crowd noise.  This part also felt a bit windy, but I’m probably conflating or drawing a blank.  Maybe the conflating of memory starts to get a little faulty because it was here that I knew that my mistakes were catching up to me.  My ankles started to get tight.  I wasn’t used to this happening, especially so early in a run, and I can say that this very much worried me.  I didn’t know how or what type of effect it would have on me, but I was very much aware of it and I just hoped that it wouldn’t set in or begin to have an impact in the coming miles.  One of the hardest stretches was the exit from Greenpoint, over the Pulaski Bridge, and into Long Island City, however, it was either right before or right after when I started to hear a familiar beat, Too Short’s “Blow the Whistle” and without missing a step, tripping, or falling on my ass, I grabbed the top of my shirt and got hyphy for my area family on the sidelines.  I think I might have nearly pulled a muscle in the process.  Multitasking while marathoning can be hard.

Then we entered the short stretch in Long Island City, complete with more loud music and the accompanying gong cymbals that seemed to communicate the great test ahead.  The Queensborough Bridge.  

Imagine.  Imagine going from all sorts of noise.  Crowd cheering.  Music.  Everything.  To nothing.  To all you hear is the sound of panting.  Periodic panting.  Deep breaths .  From all of us as we marched from Queens into Manhattan.  We were gathering ourselves because the last 10 miles were on the way.  We were recalibrating.  Re-learning.  Checking our pace.  Doing mental math.  All of the above.  But mostly, we were breathing.  Deeply.  And heavily.  We started to see the discarded water bottles and gooey snacks.  This must be where so many runners had to relieve themselves of the extra baggage they had needed to get to this point.  Panting.  Legs moving.  Slower.  Together.  As we began the descent across the bridge we heard the noise for the run pack ahead who had made it to 1st Ave.  “A wall of sound” they called this—because of the lack thereof during the previous mile.  A couple miles back I had checked my phone and had started to see that my GPS was off again.  I would learn one of the possible culprits upon completion of the race, but I must admit my thinking was very confused.  It said I crossed the halfway mark in 1:28:46—about 3 minutes after what my GPS had said.  Who would I follow?  I didn’t have much time to decide, so I just kept on going.  What I did know was that was too fast with the sub-3 goal in mind because I would have to pretty much duplicate that in the next 13 miles.  I learned the hard way—because when mile 16 came about, what should have been a grand push forward was a more deflated version.  

My time from 16-20 was probably decent, but the miles of mistakes had already taken effect.  I didn’t have the boost I needed to have.  Now, this was different from Marathon #1.  I wasn’t burnt out completely.  I just didn’t have the reserves I needed.  During that four mile stretch up (but at a slight decline) 1st Ave I pushed ahead, still doing surprisingly well after the previous bridges.  The crowds along these streets as we went from the Upper East Side all the way to Spanish Harlem was amazing.  It felt like a lot of the track clubs and run teams were out in full effect to support their fellow runners.  I sort of drifted along to the other side, trying to focus on the miles ahead.  I then reached the Willis Ave Bridge and, at the time I don’t think I realized it, but it really didn’t feel too bad.  I was aware that certain things in my body—particularly my ankles, calves, quads, glutes, and hammies (let’s just say my legs)—felt like mini electric jolts, almost as if you were looking at a control board and random red flashing lights start popping up everywhere, quick signs that were maybe communication to me that fatigue was starting to set in.  Mind you—I was still grabbing every water and gatorade that I could.  The Bronx, which had a reputation of thinned-out crowds, was anything but!  There were people out and about cheering us on and every once in a while I had to cross my arms to pay homage with an “X” to the Boogie Down borough.  I think in between miles 20 and 21, when I made a turn, I saw my brother Udoka ahead and have him a shout as another turn quickly followed.  It’s amazing what a moment like that, at that point of the race, can do.

As the Bronx came to a close, we entered Harlem and began the trek up 5th Ave.  I was a bit deceived initially because the first part was flat, so it wasn’t as bad as I expected.  I wasn’t exactly moving fast anymore, but here I was, at mile 21—almost 22, and this wall was there, sure, but not “there there.”  At 125th or 124th and 5th I saw another group of friends; Steph, Greg and Margaret, who gave me another nitrous boost of energy.  It’s funny, in the video taken during these moments, I seem to be moving much, much better than I remember.  

So.  here it is.  Mile 22.  And there it is.  5th Ave.  The slow ascent.  The last step before Central Park.  Close to the finish.  And yet still so far away.  5th Ave.  As I was looking ahead I couldn’t help but think: “Why has 5th Ave never looked this way before?”  Honestly, I don’t think I saw crowds at this point.  They were there, but I was so completely unaware of them.  All I saw was this stretch of blocks that appeared more never-ending than I had ever seen in that way before.  I thought to myself, “I could have sworn I walked up this.  Ran up this.  Shit, taken a bus or a taxi up this…why has this never looked so infinite.”  After the fact it’s easy to know why—because I’d always run it going the opposite direction.  I had always run it going downhill.

Here it was.  The last 5K or so.  My GPS fooling me completely by saying I’d almost completed 24 or 25 miles and now this mountain of doom ahead.  And there I went.  Time started to feel like it was taking longer.  Longer minutes.  Longer distance.  Less distance covered in the longer minutes.  I tries doing what I was told—I looked at one runner ahead of me and tried to surge ahead.  the person I passed probably did the same.  And it went like that for a while.  Back and forth.  The street numbers getting smaller but barely and at such a painstakingly slow pace.  I began to wonder…”Does this stretch ever end?  Will I ever make it to Central Park?”  Just when I thought it would never come, somehow it did, but at this point I’m amazed I was moving at all.  I told myself.  “Don’t stop.  Don’t ever stop.  Just keep going.”  As some sort of sick joke the first Central Park hill came.  I know it registered as a hill, but now the electrical surges I spoke of earlier in my legs felt like they had hardened into wet cement.  I saw another middle school friend, Selena, who was cheering and I saw her and I more or less communicated that it felt like my body was dying.  Nonetheless, her presence did provide another jolt.  It was more spotty than ever, but I began to wonder where that mile 25 stretch along 59th would be.  Whether it was coming or not.  I barely registered the arrival of mile 24.  Enough to know that at mile 24.5 there was a downhill, but that when it came I barely had the energy “to make up any of the lost time.”  I pushed through mile 24 until finally I got to mile 25 and, shortly after, the stretch across 59th St.  And here’s where the wheels came off.  Around mile 25, or even late mile 24 my GPS said I had hit 26.2 miles and that I had accomplished it in less than 3 hours.  I can say sadly that this completely fucked with my mind because I knew, to a likely degree that it was a false sense of accomplishment, but even worse, that I still had X amount of miles left and that my body was shutting down.  After a short bend along that 59th St. stretch and after stopping the GPS on my phone, I all of a sudden became more aware of the pulse in my neck and started to feel like it was going to explode.  As I was realizing this I started to get quite dizzy and just when I used my hand to touch it and felt it beating to a fever pitch, I broke my golden rule.  I stopped.

I needed to do this, but boy was this a double-edged sword.  My body, knowing how close it was to shutting down, now thought it was shutting off.  The breath became a reality, as did the pains in my legs that felt heavier and more severe by the second.  I started walking to the railing to get my balance and trying to orient myself, but a part of me was like, “Keep walking.  Just keep walking.”  I did this for I don’t know how long.  It felt like a while of walking before I realized that an EMT biker was right behind me, asking me if I was OK.  I told him how I was feeling.  he understood.  He tailed me from that point to to the finish.  He was there as I tried to start moving again.  Power walking.  Starting and stopping.  He gave me all the words of encouragement he could.  My hamstrings were flaring.  My calves.  I finally got to around Columbus Circle and heard the nearing rock music that surely would have kicked me into gear had I played everything the right way.  I asked him to pace me slowly on his bike while I ran alongside him.  He kept telling me “You got such and such amount to go—just a little more” and I was getting the sense that I was almost done.  The hardest part and also the best part for me was when I saw the last little hill that led to the grandstands.  26 miles done and just a little left to go.  The hardest part of that section was when I was laboring, that last .2 miles remaining, and I saw my mom, my dear mom, yelling and shouting support from the stands, made eye contact with her and wanted so badly to have reached that point with more energy, more grace, with a surge that carried me past the finish line and into oblivion.  How I wished that were the case.  I looked at her, trying to show any strength, trying to show her the strength that she has always shown me, and took my last steps, my lasts rides, the last semblance of a run, crossed the finish line, and completed the NYC Marathon.

Epilogue 

I finished with a time of 3:07:59.  Officially about 13 minutes better than my first marathon.  I spent the next moments walking gingerly to the medal, in pure agony, walking out of Central Park, and then walking into the medical tent where I would cramp for the net 30-40 minutes.  My quads were the first to go.  Then my calves.  Then my hip flexors.   A barrage of throbbing and tightening that seized my whole body.  Luckily, I was able to get through with the help of Talia and Nicole, two volunteers who helped weather the post-race storm.  The whole medical staff was beyond exceptional.  Talking me through.  Speaking calming words.  Staying with me the whole way.  When I finally stopped cramping, after a cup of hot chocolate and another cup of salted water, I made it out.  It felt like I had done a mini marathon just in that tent.  

So, here I am.  Two marathons in the books.  Overjoyed that I got to share such an incredible experience with so many, but competitively a bit disappointed and wanting more.  I don’t want to make a single excuse for not having done better because at the end of the day so many things needed to align the day of for me to even make it there in the first place.  I look at the things that I can control—the lack of discipline via the lack of pacing.  I got caught up and, despite all the training, the training cannot make up for an entire race day’s lack of discipline.  It nullifies all that work you put in.  It can get you to 24 or 25, but it can’t get you to 26.2.  I might not have hit that mile 20 wall, but the race isn’t won in the 25th mile.  

I learned in addition to every second mattering—so does every step.  As I alluded to before, my GPS was off by a lot, and I learned later that the programmed marathon that the NYC app tracks is the straight middle line or lane, I could say.  I drifted off countless times and thus ran more than I probably needed.  Hard not to overthink that fact and wonder what might have been or where I might have gotten had I stuck in that lane, but moving forward I have realized that it might be better to stay with that middle pack.  Every step—every extra step—matters.

I have to confess that the past two years have been tough, as I know they have been tough on everybody.  The pandemic continues to rear its ugly head time and time again, mutating in all of its various forms, and confronted us in ways that I know I haven’t been ready for.  Running has provided an outlet these past years that, in many ways, has saved me.  It allows me to think.  It allows me to empty out.  Run off steam.  Fight through that weight that sometimes feels insurmountable.  I have to confess that I have always been fully aware of the societal sayings, “New York isn’t for everybody” or “If you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere.”  Since 2016, I have wrestled with this city and in the past two years I’ve spent the majority of the hardest times in Seattle.  I’m not sure what this means.  I’m not sure it has to mean anything.  But I would be lying to you if I told you this past Sunday was just another race for me.  It felt like much more.  As ridiculous as it sounds, somewhere in my head I thought that conquering the city of New York, over 26.2 miles, in under 3 hours, was going to mean that I had made it there…if only for one day.  And I didn’t.  So everything felt a bit heavier for me those last miles.  

Therefore, back to the drawing board I go.  Humbled in the best way, as I have been so often by that great, big city.  A bittersweet taste in my tongue.  Hungry for more.  Already planning the next one.  Shit…I was wishing I could have recovered in a day, and could have run it back next week.  I’m absolutely intent on running NYC again and intent on doing it in under 3 hours.  I know it’s a tough course and I know there’s opportunities to run flatter marathons, but I think my ego won’t allow me to feel like I’ve really done it or really accomplished my sub-3, Boston qualifying goal, unless I do it in NYC or on a challenging course.

Best believe…it’s going to happen.       

…

Now for the part I’ve been waiting for the moment I started recapping and reflecting on this magical day—an opportunity to thank all those that had a hand in making this race possible.  Let the thank you roll call begin.

Thank you Cathy and Ciara for your integral roles in helping me get to SeaTac for the red-eye and from the JFK airport to the Staten Island ferry Sunday morning.

Thank you A-Rob for giving me countless gems and words of wisdom during all of my marathons and especially this one.  This guy completed his 11th marathon on Sunday.  An absolute legend.  

Thank you to Kait and Hannah and Udoka and Michelle and Greg and Margaret and Steph and Will for being there along the ride!  Thank you to Vic and Bianca, Kirief, Spencer, Tatiana, Morgan, Riv, Raven, Savannah, and Nate and Elyssa for the positivity during and leading up to the race.  

Thank you Nicole and Talia for bringing me back to life.  All of the medical volunteers.  All of the race volunteers.  The people handing out water and gatorade.  All the people cheering all of us on during the race.  Thank you New York for showing up and showing out.   

Thank you to I.T. The Marathon Continues, my brother.  Slow Grind 25/8.

Thank you to the Miami Boys—“All I NEEEEED IS YOUR LOVEEEE TONIGHTTTTT!”  I felt yall’s energy and love all weekend.  

Thank you to my Mom for being in attendance and for being my inspiration in every way. The Saturday runs were forever ingrained in me.

Thank you to my Dad for the never-ending support, for always being interested in where the running has taken me, and for your constant and personal investment in this journey.  To my sister Celia, Drew, Auntie Linda for having my back always. I feel ya’ll behind me!

Thank you to everyone who donated to Team For Kids: Noe, Linda, Drew, Monette, Carole, Rebecca, Justin, Ashkan, Danny, Aki, Will, Carson, Celia, Steph, Mr. Hazelwood, Udoka, Ashley, Tatiana, Ed, Marquis, Sarah, Nate, Tio Ba, Shelby, Fikison, Miles D., Toby, Ari, Dad, Humbert, Bianca, Vic, Ms. Read, Alex, Rochel, Nate, Laurie, Dawn, Kayla, and Judy.  Without you I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to run in the first place!

Thank you to Danny, who is the reason all of this marathon business started in the first place.  My fellow slenderman.  My marathon running brother.  We tied up now.  

Thank you to the awesome people I met for the first time and conversed with this weekend and exchanged running stories, joys, and commiserations.

Thank you to all of those that have expressed their constant support these past years.  Your messages have powered me through!  

Thank you to Mountaintop Run Club.  Can’t wait for the next hill to climb.    

To all of you.  You’re my village.  And I love you all.  

3:07:59.  13 minutes better than the last time.  2:??:?? is on the way.   

[It was] 5:37 on a Thursday night...

Still early.  Still early enough to see the streaks of light through that blue grey sky and still light enough to recognize the passage of time.  Still.

I had gotten out of work to make my face look younger.  To make me look less weary and less withered.  Those dark circles under my eyes have grown much darker lately.

If Thelonious had never Monked Alone then maybe I would have been without the inner peace that came as I drove along the city streets that brought me here and now.  

I listened deeply while the keys spoke to me—one way tickets to parts unknown, wondering if the songs might stop.  I know these streets though.  These streets are numbered.  3 to 4.  18 to 22.  Montlake Boulevards and Campus Parkways.  15th Street Northeasts and University Avenues.  

The notes hopped and skipped and hopped and skipped.  I found myself gliding on 50th Street.  Wallingfords.  Greenlakes.  Bordering the 11s to the 13s.  More numbers.  Driving past the streets I turned on, day in and day out, parked my car and stayed there for a while.  

My eyes checked the stereo reading.  The jazz was almost over.  

I went on a beat I had on a whim, hungry for more and more to revisit.  Fremont Aves.  Phinney Aves.  Greenwood Aves.  This was 7.  Or 6.  This was 7 or 6 all the way to 13 or 14 or 15.  It was foggy around there.  But as I continued the ascent from 15 to 18, I watched as the autumn leaves continued to fall and blow and run away from their homes.  They danced a ballet that I’ll just have to remember.  

One day I’ll be able to describe this moment better.  Because these leaves weren’t yellow and those reds weren’t red and those greens weren’t green any longer.  It was the way they huddled together, most of them along the side of the roads.  I was taken by the others—those who had just fallen and were in the middle of these streets.  In the middle of falling and in the middle of going, but lost in the joy of the beginning of their movements.  They were dancing.  Even inside the car, even with Monk playing, even with the record almost over I could hear them whooshing and I could hear them dancing.  

The end always ends at the beginning.  These were the ends of the numbered streets.  This was Greenwood again.  This was Phinney again.  

Had time stopped at the traffic lights? What time was it now?  Was this the 5 to 10?  These cars going left and going right.  These leaves circling behind them like tumbleweeds.  This green light to take me down and down.  

Down and down.  As the hills started rolling.  Descending to a roundabout and drifting towards the west.  One last turn.  Those streaks of light more hidden now.  Another hill.  Let me take this in.  Let me take this in.  Let me take this in.  

Slowly moving the tires.  Less leaves on the trees.

Here again.  Home.  

As the CD changed.    

The Isles Go Dark

As I get older, I start to think more often of when I was younger.  When the times were simpler.  Simple routines.  Like Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, switch Wednesday, Thursday, switch Friday, switch Saturday and start all over again.  It was the time of eight channels.  The time of 4 and 5, of 7 and 9, of 11 and 13, and 16 and 22.  It was the time when my dad used to have his black and white TV, picked up I don’t know when, but always good for a Sonics game at night or a public address while eating chicken wings from Wing Dome or Chips Ahoy from the nearest grocery store.  It was the time when movies could be rented from a variety of different places like community staples or commercial institutions.  People walked up from their couches, strolled a few blocks away, or maybe even took the car to make a five minute drive.  For me, there were many.  With my mom, there was Video Isle located on Fremont Ave.  With my dad, there was Blockbuster Video on 85th St.  With my friends there was Hollywood Video.  And later on, when the latter two went away, there was even Rain City until the rain faded away.  Now, they are down to one: Scarecrow Video on Roosevelt Ave.  The last video store in all of Seattle.  The last of dying breed.

My childhood can be defined through VHS cassette tapes.  My generation will remember, of course, the Blue and White with the yellow through the middle.  Blockbuster video was a key ingredient in most sleepovers and many a weekend.  Hollywood Video, too.  As I look back on those two spots I think of how intelligently they were curated.  The inside of Hollywood Video was set up like the inside of a movie theater, lessening the wound of not being able or not desiring to make it out to the cinema.  Their walls were adorned with dozens of the same movie that practically grabbed your throat and demanded you to rent it no matter how terrible they looked.  There were marquees highlighting the classics and stylized signs that organized each section thematically.  Then, of course—and especially with a group—when one miraculously decided on a singular title, there was the line leading to the counter with every single candy imaginable.  Candies only found in theaters.  Candies you’d never even heard of.  Candies even 7-Eleven couldn’t get their hands on.  And then, just when you thought it couldn’t get any better (or worse) there was the dreaded…”Pickle-In-A-Pouch.”  I’d be lying to you if I told you what deals places like Hollywood and Blockbuster had to offer.  I know that later on, when the two were going out of business, they made their movies available for purchase. Hollywood advertised a 4 movies for $20 deal. We did that a few times.  Somewhere in my dad’s collection he has a copy of “Out of Africa.”  I remember one awful memory when I convinced a birthday party I was attending to rent the movie “Bedazzled,” which I still maintain is a good movie.  The first time I saw it was really funny.  It turned out to be a terrible choice.  You know that feeling when you want people around you to like something just as much as you, so you spend every few minutes telling them, “Ok, just wait for this next part, right here—ok, the next scene is super funny though.”  It was an absolute nightmare that my friends still won’t let me live down.  

The fondest memories were from the local, neighborhood spots, in particular, Video Isle.  I loved Video Isle so much and when I was young it felt like I lived there on the weekends.  They used to have deals—and I’m probably conflating these—but there was 2-for-1 Tuesdays, 3 for $8 dollars or 3 movies for 7 days whenever (or maybe just the weekends?) and then when they started to raise the price of new rentals, they would give you a dollar off the next purchase if you returned it the next day.  Video Isle taught me so much.  It taught me how to break things down and taught me how to categorize too, much in the same way that baseball cards taught me math and statistics.  “You mean not every movie is the same?  There’s ‘Drama’?  What’s that?  What’s ‘Mischief and Mayhem’ and ‘Comedy’?  Who is Martin Scorcese and why are all of his movies in this section?  It became another library for me.  A place to learn and educate myself.  I remember one time I spent an afternoon there just counting how many of the movies I had seen.  It took a long time, but not because I had seen so many—it felt like I hadn’t seen anything at all.  My mom and dad raised me to know the importance of international cinema and the languages of the world.  It felt like more often than not we found ourselves in that little nook right after the entrance renting “Yi-Yi”, “Central Station” or “Red”, “White” and “Blue” from the Kieslowksi “Colors” trilogy.  Video Isle had this awesome way of marking movies as staff favorites, putting star stickers on movies that they really liked.  Some movies had more stars than others, like “Groundhogs Day” and “Clerks.”  Funny story—one of our favorite employees, Kevin, who we invited to my Bar Mitzvah, recommended “Clerks” to my mom and I one night.  I wouldn’t say there were tons of misses from the Video Isle staff or from Kevin for that matter, but let’s just say that my mom didn’t find it highly amusing to discover that one of the fictional characters in the movie dies trying to give himself fellatio in a bathroom nor did she think I needed to know what that meant at my age (I was pretty young at the time).  Now, in the film I don’t think they used the term fellatio--I’m thinking they were a little more straight to the point, but what was clear is that my mom may or may not have made Kevin very uncomfortable when he asked us if we had liked the movie or not. But don’t worry.  He redeemed himself with other suggestions over the years.  There were other employees, including one woman, who literally lived two houses down.  She was so cool and I remember watching her kid grow up.  As I got older and started to walk around in the area more often I became more aware of those yellow cassette tapes tucked under people’s arms, cassette tapes that turned into DVDs that listed 3 or 1-day rentals and were adorned with a pink parcel that said to take it back the following day for a discount.  And how can I forget—the popcorn.  Oh my goodness, the popcorn.  The best popcorn in the history of movies and movie stores.  Ask anyone in Fremont or other nearby neighborhoods to attest and they will.  Popcorn made fresh.  Popcorn whose kernels we would gladly let get stuck in our teeth.  Popcorn that wouldn’t last the walk home.  

Towards the end of middle school and into high school my dad and I started to go to Rain City, usually the one on Market St. in Ballard, but occasionally the one on 36th St. in Fremont.  They used to offer 2-for-1 on Thursday, I think?  Maybe Wednesday?  It was one of those middle days of the week.  It was sometimes kind of hard to choose a movie with my Dad because one of three things would happen.  Either he’d let me choose one that he didn’t care to watch and he’d choose one for a day I wasn’t there or he would choose a movie that he hoped I would like and he would choose one for a day I wasn’t there or he would let me choose one that maybe we both agreed on (and hadn’t seen) and one other movie that I wanted to watch without him.  The truth was, for all the movies I had seen, he had seen more.  And looking back on it—I could have done more to listen to him because he usually would be down to revisit a classic or a good flick that for one odd reason or another I was opposed to.  I’m sure my dad remembers one of our favorite employees at Rain City, this tall Asian man with long, long black hair.  I want to say his name was Brandon?  Ivan? Ray?  I wish I could remember better, but one thing is for certain—I’d always see him in the neighborhood and his hair would always be floating in the wind trying to catch up with him.  

Rain City closed first.  I think they’re salons now.  One of them is, I think.  The other is part of a bar, but used to be in such a cool spot, in that corner lot near Roxy’s Deli.  Video Isle’s disappearance came later.  Now we have one giant remaining—the singular Scarecrow Video.  Any movie lover or movie hater, any Seattle frequenter or Seattle visitor, any person with a beating heart must take the time to give Scarecrow video a visit.  I do now know how long it will be there, but it has been for 30 plus years.  It has 137,000 titles and some movies require a deposit in the hundreds either cause of the sheer rareness or they have the only existing copy or the movie is out of stock—take your pick.  Sometimes when I was younger I used to honestly be scared of Scarecrow.  As a kid, it gave you that feeling of a reclusive collector’s basement, except in this instance, wide out in the open for the whole world to see.  I mean the magnitude of the place cannot be understated.  There are innumerable categories.  Directors you’ve never even heard of.  Specialities and themes you couldn’t even dream up, except they did.  There are twists and turns—it’s a maze to an extent, but one you can get out of.  It is a wonder of the city and the more you think of it—a wonder of the world, especially cinematically.  I’ve never been to “Vidiots” in Los Angeles, but Scarecrow certainly holds its own.  I started to talk to the employees more often, feeling less intimidated as an adult.  They are as kind and as knowledgeable as any historian and there is a joy and appreciation for cinema there.  Last year, during the pandemic I made sure to go there as often as I could.  And this is not going to be one of those, stop watching Netflix and paying for ten streaming services and go to your local video store soapbox speeches, however, now there is only one video store you can go to.  I hope that puts it into perspective.  Scarecrow is constantly hosting fundraisers because they have no other choice if they are going to sustain themselves.  I hope it continues to be around forever.  

This is the power of local and the community.  The beauty of memory.  The sadness of growing up because certain things cannot stay the same.  I go to Seattle often and go up Fremont Ave. often, too.  Video Isle is still there, although it is empty inside, and more hollow than ever during the nighttime.  The hanging posters on the side are vacant and no longer.  But the sign is still there.  You know that it used to be something.  I know that it used to be something.  And it always will be.  

There.    

to walk in los angeles...

to walk in los angeles
is maybe where the homeless 
man or woman might tell 
that you’ve been walking more than
they have;
while they watch you as you pass
with side eyed confused looks
“he must not be from here”
they say as they carry on to their tents
abandoned by the sun and by the seas
eyes they have for others
the rays and the sun and the smog 
with no eyes for them

is to wait in line
as if one was stuck in traffic
masks to cover faces
the queue moving slowly 
beckoning coughs
to spread a virus in a jail cell tent
swabs to grab saliva 
“have you been a good boy?”
or
was your journey more important 
your breath more needed 
to stop the sweat from clogging 
up your pores
to stop the rush of the recent jeep
that sped down the block
clipped the side of a mother and her children
turned out to avoid the next mother
and slowly squealed
screech 
screech
screech
until it landed on its head

is to be on flat earth
unsolid ground 
cracks in the middle 
of the streets that run forever 
quieter now than they’ve ever been
before
sunglasses near the trash that hid their 
tired eyes
froufrou hats that covered
falling hair 
clothes that warmed the thin bones 
underneath 
the hollywood sign

to walk in los angleles…
is to walk a very long time

Mrs. Thompson

Dear Mrs. Thompson,

Today I went on to Facebook to see if you had a profile, so I could add you as a friend.  I suppose I could have just taken the few seconds to find you in my phone’s contacts, but I was curious about whether or not any of my other elementary school teachers had made the transition to Facebook and then I thought, well damn, let me see if Mrs. Thompson has one.  I looked once and wasn’t able to find anything and, at first, I thought, well yeah, Mrs. Thompson wouldn’t have one, but I searched again anyway—this time with ‘Donna Thompson Seattle’.  I found some people that weren’t you and then I scrolled down a little further to a group that read “Donna (Flynn) Thompson Memorial”, immediately thinking that it was a memorial for someone else that just so happened to share your name.  But in the thumbnail, I got this really queasy feeling because the woman in the picture sort of looked like you.  But it couldn’t have been you.  So I clicked on the group page.  When the page opened I felt like someone had taken a bowling ball and swung it into my stomach.  There you were in two header photos, one of which took me back to the times of elementary school and the other, the thumbnail photo, which apparently was you, with who I assume to be your husband and I would imagine to be your kids.

I’m not sure I knew what to do after this.  I think I looked outside and then I craned my head backward and then forward again and then to the sides not quite knowing where to look.  Like all sick feelings that seem to grow sicker and fester like a wildfire through all parts of your body, I began to get really, really sad.  Now I know what you’re thinking, I’ve used ‘but’ at the beginning of two sentences and I just used the word ‘sad’ and these were things that you surely taught me not to do, but forgive me, I just can’t help it right now.  It was a wave of reality that continued to crash and crash and with every subsequent thrashing I refused to acknowledge the truth, albeit weaker, until finally it seemed to wash over me fully.

I had the extraordinary privilege of being in your second grade class at B.F. Day Elementary School and if that wasn’t enough, I was gifted another opportunity to be your student in third grade.  My sister was also afforded the same luxury when she attended B.F. Day several years before  You were mainly a third grade teacher, if I’m not mistaken, but there were a a handful of us that were put into your class in both second and third grades and when I say that this was quite possibly one of the things I’m most grateful for during my time here on this earth, you have to know that it’s true.  You look back on those times and you’re lucky to remember even the momentary blips that you can.  The way your handwriting graced the blackboard.  The way you showed us how ours was supposed to fit finely on the page.  Maybe it was the science experiments or the opportunities to create our own books with a diverse array of covers to choose from.  Maybe it was how your fandom matched mine—your fondness for the University of Michigan football team and mine for the Seattle Mariners, which is something I think we both seemed to share.  Maybe it was how you made me believe I was decent at Math, that I really excelled at something, and the way you made us feel like we all excelled at something, and then how you tempered our excitement and rowdiness at times with this firm discipline that kept the class under control and even keeled.  But maybe it was the way you allowed us to be free, the way you allowed us to learn so much and yet enjoy the newness and growing riches of life that only eight or nine year olds could possibly know.  How we can develop crushes one moment and then read out loud in front of the class the next.  Or how you seemed to cultivate this wonderful environment of kids who enjoyed being with each other, enjoyed participating with one another, and genuinely knew how lucky they were to be there with you at the helm.  

Do you remember how you put those little cut-outs of all of our pictures up on your board?  I’m not sure how long that tradition had existed, but that does something to a kid to be honored in that way.  You feel special.  What else do I remember?  I think it was your class that had the chart with the six or seven traits of good writing, wasn’t it?  The word choice, ideas, organization, sentence fluency, conventions, voice.  Am I forgetting one?  I know that that chart was in your class.  I really wish I remembered more.  

It was one of those things where you go to school the next year and the next year and you wonder why you can’t just go back to Mrs. Thompson’s class.  I want to believe I told you one time, and if I didn’t I know I told my parents on countless occasions, that I wish I could have had you as my teacher every year.  K-12.  Just Mrs. Thompson again and again.  Or if anything, if I was struggling one year in a different class, that you could work your magic, settle me down, make me learn what I couldn’t or hadn’t, and save the day.  You had that super power.  You came to my Bar Mitzvah.  In middle school, I made sure to go back at least a couple of times to help you out.  I think I have a picture somewhere of me cleaning the famous blackboard.  It almost seemed like a crime to wash your handwriting off the wall.  

And then there was this period where I didn’t reach out to you.  It wasn’t for a lack of thinking about you, your impact, or your class.  It was just one of those strings of years where you lose touch a little bit, you get distracted, and fall victim to the stuff that’s ahead of you.  Every so often, in conversations with my mom, my dad, and my sister we would talk of having you over for dinner.  We had to honor you in some way and we hoped to all get together to make it happen.  And it just kept getting pushed back and pushed back and talked about and agreed that it would be a great idea, but we never were able to manifest anything.  When I graduated college, I started to think about that divine possibility again, but realized that we had no way of reaching you.  I asked around and then I think I called B.F. Day who forwarded the message that we were trying to get in touch with you.  I don’t remember quite when we established the communication anew, but I remember being in eastern Washington, Pullman I think, with the Seattle Shakespeare touring troupe and we had just finished getting some food or ending a show, and I got a call from an unknown number and I picked it up.  And I found out it was you!  It was like a buried candle that still existed in the depths of memory was reignited.  I was so excited and overwhelmed and emotional that everyone in the car was wondering who I possibly could be talking to.  Man, I remember that phone call like it was yesterday.  It was so, so good to hear from you, to hear how you were.  I had to have mentioned a plan for a future get together and to hear that you were open to it made me feel so good that I couldn’t wait to relay it to my family that the honorable Mrs. Thompson could join us for dinner!

It seemed to be delayed, completely our fault, because I for one didn’t think it would be right to have the dinner unless all of us could be there.  What a lousy, lousy mistake that was.  Then, in 2016, during a slow day at Sundance Cinema I was working concessions and a few people came to the counter and asked for some food and, at first, I didn’t process it, but then I saw your face and asked if it could be you, and you said it was, and once again, pure joy and happiness ran over me.  I think you had injured your arm because if I remember correctly you had a cast on one of them, so I made sure to hug you lightly and softly, and I really wish that you could feel the affection and the gratitude and the love in that hug and I hope that my mom and dad and sister’s energy were transported in it too because that was unfortunately the last time I saw you.

Then I moved to New York a few months later and I swear to you that most times when I would come back or was anticipating a return to Seattle I would talk to my mom and dad and see if there were opportunities to make that dinner happen.  It just had to at some point.  

So, you can imagine what came over me when I found out you were gone.  It’s like every word you ever taught me suddenly vanished.  Like every piece of air in my body had been snatched.  I still feel sick.  In more ways than you know, Mrs. Thompson.  I will forever regret not having you over for dinner, if nothing else, to spend the whole time telling you how much I appreciate you and love you and how I will always appreciate and love you.  And how I will always hold you as the gold standard for any teacher.  Because you showed me what type of impact a teacher could have on someone.  You were a superhero.  You are a superhero.  In every way.  

I’m sorry that it has been almost three years since your passing and that I am just finding out about it today.  I am sorry and regretful beyond measure that I didn’t know.  And that I didn’t check in.  And that I didn’t pay my respects by coming to Oregon for your Celebration of Life.  I swear to you that I would have been there.  I hope that you can forgive me.

Mrs. Thompson, wherever you are, on whichever soft cloud in heaven you happen to be relaxing on, I hope you are at peace.  

I hope you have all the archival Michigan Football Team tapes at your disposal and I hope you have a special stream just for you when they’re playing down here.  I always imagine you rooting for them in the sea of blue at the Big House.  

I hope you have the opportunity to shine your light on all the kids who lost their lives too soon, so they can get a proper opportunity to learn from the best.     

I hope you are resting easy and pain free.  I know you wouldn’t like me using this language, but Fuck Cancer.  

We love you down here and will forever keep your memory alive.

GO BLUE! 

2nd Grade

3rd Grade

the coyote

It all started with the coyote on Sherman Way heading north from the southbound freeway entrance.  Like another encounter years before I was frozen in my tracks and I can imagine the other two cars to the side of me at 2AM on Christmas Eve, well—maybe they did feel something, but they didn’t seem to mind much and continued forward heading onto the 101.  I, on the other hand, had missed an opportunity once and was not going to miss it again.  I pulled ahead slightly, a little past the southbound off ramp (no cars in sight) and hovered in my car looking out of the drivers side window.  I fumbled my phone in hope of capturing, despite it being mostly a black night, cursed out loud at my repeat offense of not being able to live in the moment, and watched the wily coyote dart hop into what would have been a dangerous direction had it not been for the present circumstances.  I watched in awe—saw him skip ahead, stop, turn around—the few non-exiting cars that were on the freeway scaring him a bit with their speed—and experience indecision, not knowing whether to find an early Christmas Eve dinner on the freeway, in the brush to the side, or back in my direction.  Still I gazed, rendered completely immobile.  He decided that the freeway would suffice and I watched him disappear into the dark while a couple of cars in the distance hinted an imminent exit.  

I journeyed ahead for a moment before making a quick u-turn and heading onto the freeway.  Within seconds I was up to 80, the Los Angeles flow of traffic, and my mind drifted to coyotes of memories past.  Most likely a Friday or Saturday.  2AM.  Maybe 3.  My friend and I tired after a long night out.  We were heading up Gower towards the hills, moving slower than normal, bullshittin’, when a couple of blocks before my drop-off point, we saw two dogs heading our way.  We defaulted to disbelief thinking that they were two similar looking stray dogs, but the closer they got, hopping slowly like they do, we realized they were two coyotes.  It felt like they could have been brothers, maybe even twins.  The way they gained in unison, eyes straight ahead, like they were coming directly for the car.  Finally both sides reached a crossroads.  Them—knowing we might create trouble further ahead—and us, at first doing everything we could to get a video, and soon after hypnotized by this growingly singular moment.  They decided first; to journey up a hilly street to their right, and like them, we non-verbally decided to pursue, not wanting the moment to end.  

That was the closest we ever got to them.  We sidewinded and tossed and turned and created a ruckus with them barely in our sights, culminating in a final moment where we stalled at an intersection knowing they were close, and watched them come out of nowhere in front of the car and subsequently vanish into the hills.  

At this point, I was passing Universal City to my left, nearing my favorite part of the 101 where it starts to feel like a turnpike out of a video game.  As the car surges ahead there is an overpass or bridge of sorts and you watch the cars ahead dip below and just as quickly shoot back up.  One of those classic recurring memories that seem to last much longer than the two or three seconds they actually last.  This made me think of heading south past West Adams Blvd on Arlington Ave near Leimert Park and for an instant as you reach the top of the hill you can see LA spread out in front of you with the palm trees in various points of your eye line.  I remember taking a much anticipated video of this when I implored a revisit and was shocked at how quickly it had passed.  There’s something to be said about the real-time experience of it all.  

Was it also two seconds before I reached the Gower exit, shut off like a cannonball and came to a halt right by the underpass of the 101, where I neighbored a homeless encampment that has grown to shocking levels over the years?  It feels like yesterday when there was just a couple of tents.  Now, there is no empty space anywhere you look.  Both sides of the sidewalk and the middle section, as well.  New discarded furniture arriving every day.  More trash littered in the streets.  Were they able to sleep?  What was on their minds?  Did they know it was Christmas Eve?  Could they have cared less what day it was?  Were any of them in their tents?  Or were they wandering coyotes in the night?  Looking for food.  Looking for money.  Looking for ears.  Looking for souls.  Looking for a home.

I made that left at the stop sign and went up Gower, passing Franklin, and since the city had gone quiet and the houses had gone dark, I turned the lights of the car off and inched slowly ahead.  Looking.  Looking.  Looking.    

dreams

It is gray day outside which, to someone born and raised in Seattle, shouldn’t be too crazy of a thing or too wild of an occurrence.  And it isn’t.  However, being that the past few weeks have presented themselves as summer in full bloom, today exists as a change of pace.  Several degrees cooler, a couple less birds chirping jovially, more cars deciding to remain in their parking places.

While I was sitting down I was reminiscing on some sounds of my childhood—one in particular, the songs of the Cranberries, a popular Irish band in the 90s that used to echo from the radio waves and my sister’s catalogue.  For many years I, for the life of me, had a certain part of one of their songs stuck in my head and like many other times in which I’ve tried to sound out melodies for people in the hope of having them remember, I would usher sounds that wouldn’t sound remotely musical at all.  I used to think what I was remembering was the Indigo Girls or someone else from that era, but to no avail.   

Then a couple years back, in a bout of boredom, I tried to recapture those sounds and melodies that I adored from my sister’s adolescence, everything from the one hit wonders to the solo artists and bands that would remain staples for years to come.  I stumbled across the aforementioned group, the Cranberries and listened to some of their more popular songs, like “Zombie” and “Linger” and then, finally, I listened to “Dreams” and the missing piece of the puzzle was discovered during a bridge about 90 seconds in where the lead singer, Dolores O’Riordan just lets loose and her voice floats in and out of butterfly drops and feather flutters.

The Cranberries have a Tiny Desk concert that I found a while back and from the date it looks to be one of the earlier concerts that Tiny Desk hosted.  It’s a beautiful 20 minutes.  It’s very lo-fi and simple, but the sounds are gorgeous.  The pleasures of live music are many, but to watch people immersed in their art and transported through their words, living the personal for the public, making the private seen, especially in this case where it is so clear that she (Dolores) is living her lyrics in front of us, is beautiful.  The way she gestures, brightens, darkens, gets distracted, brings herself back…

She passed away a couple of years back.  It made me very sad.  It makes this concert a relic in that way and makes the documentation that much more special.  

This gray day continues to be gray but she and the Cranberries have made it better.  If you have the time, hopefully it can make your day better, as well.

Rest in peace, Dolores.

fattening

the shades on the window 
are just enough 
these days—
to keep us looking out of
rectangular strips
for signs of life
for signs of waste
[our insides]
wasting away

where is the earth
the seeds and the plants
the luscious green
that keeps us teemed
brimming 
the droplets on the end 
keeping our mouths 
nourished
from the knowing 
that there is water out there 
for fields of growing

my shape may be lessening
but my insides are 
flubber
subcutaneous skin
forming into cellulite
thoughts dropping like 
sludge
by the wayside
movements from one station
to the next
the bed, 
to the couch, 
to the chair,
to the bed,
hyper
in
ac
tiv
ity

words are stuck in sludge 
tongue locked in super glue
Rs R Ls
Ss R Ts—
the train that was used 
to well oiled wheels 
good to go 
on well oiled tracks
is swaying
and sloshing 
syntax cells 
teetering
to the next port 
now with no name

fattening;
shortening—100%
my limbs and my head 
a clay figurine 
plump and pudgy;
suddenly this table 
with gretel and hansel 
with plates to the brim
of glutton and sloth
don’t seem too good to me
as they did from the outside 
looking in

thinning

thinning
like the muscle 
in my knees
used to one motion
two speeds
slow and fast
these days
the days are slow

thinning 
like the patience 
that i never had 
still coming off 
short
abrupt
petulant
biting
no answer is right
all sayings are stupid
good luck getting past

thinning 
like the snap 
that’s been screw loose 
for a while now
drivers
pedestrians 
friends 
family
neighbors
news
history 
the cliff jump future
a landing with no telling

thinning 
like the breath
that’s inhaling to my brain
somehow this oxygen
doesn’t feel like oxygen
eyes mid-lined—flat-lined
stupor sized—stupefied 
i dream 
of sleeping 
lying awake 
for hours
wishing i 
was dreaming

where has the wanting gone…
where has desire left…
where has ambition strayed…

where…

where am i now…
where will i ever be…