New York Minute #2.1: I Get More Lost by Seven A.M. Than Most People Do All Day
29 April, 2009
[Note: After 8 months in Manhattan and perhaps 75-100 trips to Central Park I can’t say I fully understand its nuances (much less ‘conquered’ them all), but at least I get less lost. I spend less time blundering about in a state of panic, more time enjoying the sights, relatively confident I know where I’m going and can return from whence I came. Just last week, in fact, I ran from my front door through the entire park, north-south, all the way to 110th Street and Central Park West without getting lost even once. (I did, however, have to climb two fences and run the ‘wrong’ way around the Reservoir. Thankfully, like pretty much everything else in New York—No Honking, No Standing Anytime, Please Curb Your Dog, No Skateboards, Leash and Pick-up, etc.—‘One Way,’ in this case, is basically a ‘suggestion,’ not exactly a ‘rule.’) So, how did I do it? How did I finally learn the twisting turns of the meandering paths? Very simple: Winter. My increased navigational skill was directly but inversely proportional to the amount of foliage on the trees. I could see where I wanted to go! Every falling leaf was a godsend, every naked shrub an ally, forcing the park to reveal itself in a way I could finally comprehend. Now, and for the last few weeks, Spring is in the air. Everything is in bloom. The maze of foliage is rebuilding itself, rapidly obscuring that which seemed so clear just a few short months ago and I fear I’ll be back where I started. Ah, but I won’t be, of course. I’ll be wandering through the park trying to find where I started.]
[Originally published 13 September, 2008]
Both of my parents are blessed with the “gift of gab.” My mother can talk to anyone about anything anywhere anytime. In fact, I’ve often thought that if we sat Carol Schaidler down with the Arabs and Israelis, not only would they work things out, they’d never shut up about it. My father, on the other hand, is a card carrying member of the grammar police. He despises incorrect usage, mispronunciation and “mumbling” (though my siblings and I agree a simple hearing aid would more than correct that little problem). He is also, short of Donald Rumsfeld and his “unknown unknowns,” the undisputed master of—shall we say—poetic terms and phrases.
Ask him if you can have twenty bucks and the knee-jerk response is: “The chances are Slim and None, and Slim is out of town.”
In response to the Milwaukee Brewers dropping 8 of 10 games in the thick of a pennant race: “They collapsed like a rubber boot.”
And numerous more “colorful” constructions that are clearly unfit for a PG-13 “family blog.”
Anyone who knows me knows that I, too, inherited this gift of language. One thing I most certainly did not inherit, however, is a clear sense of direction (in virtually all senses of the word). Jennifer loves to tell stories about how often I miss my own exit, go right when I should have gone left, get lost in my own neighborhood, or still haven’t found magnetic north on Whitefish Lake after almost four years.
It doesn’t help that I am erratically and occasionally dyslexic about north and south or east and west, no matter how many times I’ve been to a place or taken a certain route. It helps even less that on the island of Manhattan there is no north and south. Everything is either ‘uptown’ or ‘downtown’ of your exact location at that particular point in time.
Consequently, if you’re ‘downtown’ on Eighth Avenue and 23rd Street and you need to get to 53rd and Lexington, you have to go ‘uptown,’ which in this case makes relative sense since you will travel north-northeast. If, on the other hand, you find yourself at Queens Plaza (believe me, I have no idea why either, just play along) and you’re bound for the same 53rd and Lex destination, you have to go ‘downtown’ even though you will travel almost exactly due west.
New York, New York, it's a wonderful town!
The Bronx is up and the Battery's down
The people ride in a hole in the ground,
New York, New York, it's a wonderful town!
When the all of the streets are numbered and the avenues laid out in a common sensical way I generally do okay––not coincidentally why we ended up in SW Minneapolis––but when the streets bear obtuse names and intersect the avenues at even more obtuse angles, I am completely hopeless. For me, “off the grid” doesn’t mean living on a houseboat in Sausalito or a yurt in Idaho, it simply means I’ve left my neighborhood and don’t know when I’m coming back.
The streets and avenues of Manhattan north of Houston––with the exception of Broadway and a small piece of Fourth––are all laid out in a beautifully comprehensible grid. During the daylight hours I can easily get anywhere I want to go. It’s all rectangles and straight lines. It’s gorgeous. I love it. It all makes such perfect sense.
Until you enter Central Park.
Between Central Park West and Fifth Avenue, 59th Street and 110th everything falls apart. Tear up your maps and eat them. Logic has disappeared. The “transverses” and “drives” of Central Park are laid out in long, gentle curves or triangles and loops. The footpaths are even worse. They are, as my father might say, all “kitty wampuss.” To me, they’re just screwed up.
Now, as many of you know, I’ve been on a 2+ year odyssey to lose weight and reclaim the athletic prowess of my youth (well, some of it, anyway) and generally I’ve been pretty successful. I’m definitely in way better shape than I was 3 years ago and I’ve lost over 20 lbs. The main way I’ve done it is running. It’s one of the highlights of my day.
In fact, after living in Manhattan just 13 days I’ve run through Central Park seven times (exactly one more than half!) It’s beautiful and peaceful (relatively speaking) and a great way to start the day. Or, as often happens, fill it up entirely.
See, every time I run through The Park I get hopelessly lost.
I am way off the grid.
I study the maps. I plan a route. I memorize cross streets. I look in all the guidebooks and burn the images of various icons into my mind—and still I’m completely befuddled. “No battle plan survives first contact with the enemy,” as either Donald Rumsfeld or my father would say. No route of mine through Central Park survives the first 5 minutes.
Less than half a mile into the run, winding my way through the trees and giant boulders, I find myself looking up at a distant building thinking: “Is that the Plaza Hotel or just one of the many apartment buildings that vaguely looks like the Plaza Hotel? Is the street coming up West Park Drive or East Park Drive? Is that vast expanse of grass The Sheep Meadow, East Green, Great Lawn or North Meadow? Where in God’s name am I?”
Time to head for the grid. Make a beeline for that building. I don’t care if it’s The Plaza Hotel or it’s evil twin. I’ve got to get out of this park. “Please let it be Central Park South. Please let it be Central Park South. Please let it be Central Park South.”
Yes!
It is The Plaza Hotel. I am on Central Park South! I see the line of Hamsome cabs that incessantly line the park.
I’m back!
I fall to my knees and kiss the manure stained pavement––(not really, but I want to)––Praise The Lord! I’m back.
I know: I could just make it easy on myself and just run ‘uptown’ and ‘downtown’ along Fifth Avenue, the unwavering north-south line that defines the east side of the park, but I refuse to give in. I will make it happen. I will learn the twisting turning paths and all their nuances. I will beat the system. I will conquer them all!
Despite the constant feeling of being more confused than a blind homosexual at an all male weenie roast.
A phrase I didn’t learn from Donald Rumsfeld.
29 April 2009
04 March 2009
New York Minute #12: These Are the People in My Neighborhood
4 March, 2009
Some of my fondest childhood memories are from my annual summer visits to my grandparents’ house in Glen Ellyn, Illinois when I was seven, eight and nine. It was a magical time, and Glen Ellyn was a magical place.
First of all, there’s the name: Glen Ellyn. Poetic. Musical. Evocative. Two words that stood in stark and definite contrast to my own dully named hometown of Neenah, or, “Place of the Stinking Water,” as local legend had it. On top of that there were sidewalks, something completely unheard of in my gravel cul de sac on Peckham Road. There were live lobsters and Rainbow Trout in the tanks at Dominick’s grocery store; a next-door neighbor boy whose dad was an actual pilot for American Airlines; two kids on the other side who lived in a split-level ranch with a driveway that went down to the basement–– their dad parked his car in the house!––even a shadowy group of older neighborhood boys who fashioned homemade scooters from scrap lumber and roller skate wheels, and had made an actual go cart out of bicycle parts, a green-webbed folding lawn chair and a lawn mower engine. Clearly, anything could happen. It was a place of infinite promise.
But beyond even all of that there was color television.
Hundreds of miles to the north and seemingly worlds away the two sets that my family owned—the small one in the kitchen and the huge nineteen inch in the den—were still both black and white. Not that it really mattered because there were only three channels to choose from and there was never anything on. Nothing for kids, anyway. I can hardly believe it myself, but I don’t think TV, at that point, had even really entered my consciousness. It was an electrical appliance like the washing machine or the toaster. It didn’t do anything.
My grandparents, though, owned a finely crafted, truly spectacular, 25 inch Magnavox Color Console. It was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen and there was always something on: Garfield Goose and Clutch Cargo in the morning; Magilla Gorilla, Quick Draw McGraw, Bozo’s Circus and Speed Racer in the afternoon; and just before dinner, best of all, Sesame Street. (I know, it seems like a perennial morning favorite, but I swear that’s when it was on.)
Sesame Street first aired in November 1969 when I was a “pre-K” five year old, the fledgling show’s ideal demographic. “Educational TV” was an all but unknown concept at the time, so it aired in but a scant few major metropolitan areas, and most certainly not the hinterlands of Wisconsin’s Fox River Valley (where people still owned black-and-white TVs).
Suddenly, I was the Marco Polo of broadcast television.
I returned from the distant Chicago suburbs not only with fantastical tales of TVs with elegant, hand-crafted wood cabinets and multi-colored pictures, I described a certain alluring new show in which a six-foot-tall talking yellow bird meandered down the street singing the ABCs, a grumpy little green guy lived in a garbage can on the street, and two ambiguously gay roommates sang about––among other things––taking a bath with their rubber ducky.
No one could believe it.
It didn’t make any earthly sense.
The whole thing seemed preposterous.
A cartoon sheriff horse who carried a six shooter? Sure, everyone can wrap their head around that. But a gigantic, bipedal yellow bird masquerading as a kindergarten teacher? What was I trying to pull?
And therein lay much of its charm. No one else knew a thing about it. I was the only one who’d seen the show. My audience listened in rapt attention as I described the hapless guy with the bucket of paint whose apparent job it was to span the globe painting certain numbers and letters in random places only to accidentally perform the task on someone’s newly whitewashed fence or an unsuspecting bald guy’s head. Or the chef who would triumphantly announce, “Seven cherry pies,” stop for a moment to count them making sure there were seven indeed, only to then trip on the stairs, drop all but one, and plant his face in the last.
No sooner had I finished describing one small part of the show than they’d beg me to tell them another. They couldn’t get enough. It was a giant, imaginary puzzle they somehow had to fit together. Finally, when it was getting late and they’d begun to flag, I’d quietly start to sing:
Oh, who are the people in your neighborhood?
In your neighborhood?
In your neighborhood?
Say, who are the people in your neighborhood?
The people that you meet each day….
This, to me, was the radical concept of all. Who were the people in my neighborhood…? Other kids and their parents. Who were the people that I’d meet when I was walking down the street…? No one! We didn’t even have sidewalks!
Yet here was my good friend Bob singing to his purple, yellow, blue, pink and orange Muppet friends about interacting with the postman, the baker, the fireman, the shoemaker and all manner of exotic urban professional on a daily basis.
The baker…?
Bread came in plastic bags from Red Owl. No one actually baked it.
The shoemaker…?
Gimme a break. Obviously, shoes were squeezed out of the same industrial tube as the bread. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday it was bread; Thursday, Friday it was shoes.
The bus driver…?
I never saw a bus with a fare box in my life.
On and on it went. The dentist, the trash collector, the teacher, the doctor…. The cleaner who cleans and presses your clothes…? What on earth is Bob talking about?
But there on Sesame Street, that mythical, idyllic block where the kids sang and counted and spelled––where they played hopscotch and stickball in the street––the barber not only snipped and clipped and never rested until your haircut looked its best, he’d happily stop and sing with you about it, detailing the joy of his labor.
Oh, how I wanted to live there with Bob and Big Bird and Ernie & Burt and Oscar the Grouch and Mr. Hooper and everyone else. It was the most amazing, magical place I’d ever known––before or since. And that song was my siren song. I practically ached to hear it. I dreamt of living in that neighborhood, right there on Sesame Street.
Flash forward 30+ years (okay, almost 40). Now, I do live in New York where fantasy and reality often collide, perhaps most of all when it comes to the “people in my neighborhood,” the actual denizens of Manhattan who flit in and out of my daily life as I race back and forth to school or trudge home from the grocery store heavily laden with bags:
On Sixty-First there is a traffic cop
Whose sole joy is making drivers stop
When he stops a cab on green
The things you hear are quite obscene
He’s a person that I meet each day
Under the bridge there is a homeless guy
I see him every time that I walk by
He sleeps upon a cardboard box
Wearing fourteen pairs of socks
He’s a person that I meet each day
The Botox Lady has a face so tight
Her lips are huge, her teeth insanely white
She has issues, I must say
Shhh! She’s walking right this way
She’s a person that I meet each day
The Trail Mix-Muncher sees me every day
But he doesn’t have a word to say
He just stands there munching nuts
In a doorway strewn with butts
He’s a person that I meet each day
The Duane Reade cashier’s a major jerk
I don’t know why he even comes to work
He is spiteful, gruff and rude
I mean a really nasty dude
He’s a person that I meet each day
Oh, the transvestite joggers breasts are really huge
But in spite of that she’s still a dude
With her package busting out
Of her gender there’s no doubt
S/he’s a person that we meet each day*
[*Actually, Will and I only saw her once while coming home from hockey, but s/he was flying down the sidewalk at top speed with a woman’s leotard on, white wool gloves, a long pony tail, size 14 running shoes and a lot of equipment below the waistline. We both turned to each other and said, “Did you see that guy?”
Oh, these are the people in my neighborhood
In my neighborhood
In my neighborhood
Oh, in my neighborhood
Yes, these are the people in my neighborhood
They’re the people that I meet
When I’m walking down the street
They’re the people that I meet each day
It’s true: New York is chock full of characters, But if there are more weirdoes, creeps and jerks than anywhere else on earth, it’s only because there’s more of everyone than anywhere else on earth.
They say Times Square is the “crossroads of the world.”
They say if you stand by the clock in Central Station, eventually everyone will go by.
I say the people of the world—beautiful, crazy, wonderful, flawed, rude, asinine, gracious, elegant, insane, astonishingly normal, shabby, dumpy, frumpy, gorgeous, brilliant (and everything in between)—are the People of My Neighborhood.
4 March, 2009
Some of my fondest childhood memories are from my annual summer visits to my grandparents’ house in Glen Ellyn, Illinois when I was seven, eight and nine. It was a magical time, and Glen Ellyn was a magical place.
First of all, there’s the name: Glen Ellyn. Poetic. Musical. Evocative. Two words that stood in stark and definite contrast to my own dully named hometown of Neenah, or, “Place of the Stinking Water,” as local legend had it. On top of that there were sidewalks, something completely unheard of in my gravel cul de sac on Peckham Road. There were live lobsters and Rainbow Trout in the tanks at Dominick’s grocery store; a next-door neighbor boy whose dad was an actual pilot for American Airlines; two kids on the other side who lived in a split-level ranch with a driveway that went down to the basement–– their dad parked his car in the house!––even a shadowy group of older neighborhood boys who fashioned homemade scooters from scrap lumber and roller skate wheels, and had made an actual go cart out of bicycle parts, a green-webbed folding lawn chair and a lawn mower engine. Clearly, anything could happen. It was a place of infinite promise.
But beyond even all of that there was color television.
Hundreds of miles to the north and seemingly worlds away the two sets that my family owned—the small one in the kitchen and the huge nineteen inch in the den—were still both black and white. Not that it really mattered because there were only three channels to choose from and there was never anything on. Nothing for kids, anyway. I can hardly believe it myself, but I don’t think TV, at that point, had even really entered my consciousness. It was an electrical appliance like the washing machine or the toaster. It didn’t do anything.
My grandparents, though, owned a finely crafted, truly spectacular, 25 inch Magnavox Color Console. It was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen and there was always something on: Garfield Goose and Clutch Cargo in the morning; Magilla Gorilla, Quick Draw McGraw, Bozo’s Circus and Speed Racer in the afternoon; and just before dinner, best of all, Sesame Street. (I know, it seems like a perennial morning favorite, but I swear that’s when it was on.)
Sesame Street first aired in November 1969 when I was a “pre-K” five year old, the fledgling show’s ideal demographic. “Educational TV” was an all but unknown concept at the time, so it aired in but a scant few major metropolitan areas, and most certainly not the hinterlands of Wisconsin’s Fox River Valley (where people still owned black-and-white TVs).
Suddenly, I was the Marco Polo of broadcast television.
I returned from the distant Chicago suburbs not only with fantastical tales of TVs with elegant, hand-crafted wood cabinets and multi-colored pictures, I described a certain alluring new show in which a six-foot-tall talking yellow bird meandered down the street singing the ABCs, a grumpy little green guy lived in a garbage can on the street, and two ambiguously gay roommates sang about––among other things––taking a bath with their rubber ducky.
No one could believe it.
It didn’t make any earthly sense.
The whole thing seemed preposterous.
A cartoon sheriff horse who carried a six shooter? Sure, everyone can wrap their head around that. But a gigantic, bipedal yellow bird masquerading as a kindergarten teacher? What was I trying to pull?
And therein lay much of its charm. No one else knew a thing about it. I was the only one who’d seen the show. My audience listened in rapt attention as I described the hapless guy with the bucket of paint whose apparent job it was to span the globe painting certain numbers and letters in random places only to accidentally perform the task on someone’s newly whitewashed fence or an unsuspecting bald guy’s head. Or the chef who would triumphantly announce, “Seven cherry pies,” stop for a moment to count them making sure there were seven indeed, only to then trip on the stairs, drop all but one, and plant his face in the last.
No sooner had I finished describing one small part of the show than they’d beg me to tell them another. They couldn’t get enough. It was a giant, imaginary puzzle they somehow had to fit together. Finally, when it was getting late and they’d begun to flag, I’d quietly start to sing:
Oh, who are the people in your neighborhood?
In your neighborhood?
In your neighborhood?
Say, who are the people in your neighborhood?
The people that you meet each day….
This, to me, was the radical concept of all. Who were the people in my neighborhood…? Other kids and their parents. Who were the people that I’d meet when I was walking down the street…? No one! We didn’t even have sidewalks!
Yet here was my good friend Bob singing to his purple, yellow, blue, pink and orange Muppet friends about interacting with the postman, the baker, the fireman, the shoemaker and all manner of exotic urban professional on a daily basis.
The baker…?
Bread came in plastic bags from Red Owl. No one actually baked it.
The shoemaker…?
Gimme a break. Obviously, shoes were squeezed out of the same industrial tube as the bread. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday it was bread; Thursday, Friday it was shoes.
The bus driver…?
I never saw a bus with a fare box in my life.
On and on it went. The dentist, the trash collector, the teacher, the doctor…. The cleaner who cleans and presses your clothes…? What on earth is Bob talking about?
But there on Sesame Street, that mythical, idyllic block where the kids sang and counted and spelled––where they played hopscotch and stickball in the street––the barber not only snipped and clipped and never rested until your haircut looked its best, he’d happily stop and sing with you about it, detailing the joy of his labor.
Oh, how I wanted to live there with Bob and Big Bird and Ernie & Burt and Oscar the Grouch and Mr. Hooper and everyone else. It was the most amazing, magical place I’d ever known––before or since. And that song was my siren song. I practically ached to hear it. I dreamt of living in that neighborhood, right there on Sesame Street.
Flash forward 30+ years (okay, almost 40). Now, I do live in New York where fantasy and reality often collide, perhaps most of all when it comes to the “people in my neighborhood,” the actual denizens of Manhattan who flit in and out of my daily life as I race back and forth to school or trudge home from the grocery store heavily laden with bags:
On Sixty-First there is a traffic cop
Whose sole joy is making drivers stop
When he stops a cab on green
The things you hear are quite obscene
He’s a person that I meet each day
Under the bridge there is a homeless guy
I see him every time that I walk by
He sleeps upon a cardboard box
Wearing fourteen pairs of socks
He’s a person that I meet each day
The Botox Lady has a face so tight
Her lips are huge, her teeth insanely white
She has issues, I must say
Shhh! She’s walking right this way
She’s a person that I meet each day
The Trail Mix-Muncher sees me every day
But he doesn’t have a word to say
He just stands there munching nuts
In a doorway strewn with butts
He’s a person that I meet each day
The Duane Reade cashier’s a major jerk
I don’t know why he even comes to work
He is spiteful, gruff and rude
I mean a really nasty dude
He’s a person that I meet each day
Oh, the transvestite joggers breasts are really huge
But in spite of that she’s still a dude
With her package busting out
Of her gender there’s no doubt
S/he’s a person that we meet each day*
[*Actually, Will and I only saw her once while coming home from hockey, but s/he was flying down the sidewalk at top speed with a woman’s leotard on, white wool gloves, a long pony tail, size 14 running shoes and a lot of equipment below the waistline. We both turned to each other and said, “Did you see that guy?”
Oh, these are the people in my neighborhood
In my neighborhood
In my neighborhood
Oh, in my neighborhood
Yes, these are the people in my neighborhood
They’re the people that I meet
When I’m walking down the street
They’re the people that I meet each day
It’s true: New York is chock full of characters, But if there are more weirdoes, creeps and jerks than anywhere else on earth, it’s only because there’s more of everyone than anywhere else on earth.
They say Times Square is the “crossroads of the world.”
They say if you stand by the clock in Central Station, eventually everyone will go by.
I say the people of the world—beautiful, crazy, wonderful, flawed, rude, asinine, gracious, elegant, insane, astonishingly normal, shabby, dumpy, frumpy, gorgeous, brilliant (and everything in between)—are the People of My Neighborhood.
28 January 2009
Issue #11: Or Else Just Follow Anna
At first it was Brad Pitt: his placid, not-quite-smiling face exuding a contagious confidence that simply said, “Trust me, this is it.” For some reason, though, we didn’t, at least not every time, and as a result we were burned. I’m not trying to make excuses but it certainly didn’t help that Jamie Foxx was there, too, a mere fifteen feet away, beaming exuberantly day after day after day. Truly, his pull was magnetic. How could we not want to stand next to the man?
Two weeks later it was Elvis Costello: a dreary, rainy Monday. We were confused by his sudden appearance. What happened to Pitt and Foxx? Where could they have gone? Their abrupt, unexpected departure––this sudden changing of the guard––was both disorienting and disheartening. We were alone. Abandoned.
Our debate intensified quickly, becoming a full-blown argument in a matter of minutes, our voices raised against each other and the din of the onrushing A-train. Several passersby raised eyebrows, staring in disbelief, wondering what all the fuss was about. No doubt they knew long before we did that there would come a day when Pitt and Fox would go. How foolish to think it would last! They couldn’t be there forever. It was someone else’s turn.
By Saturday afternoon we still hadn’t settled the issue. Will and Anna said it was Elvis, but I didn’t buy that for a minute. “That’s way too far forward,” I said, “we’ll over shoot it by a mile.”
“No, I don’t think so,” said Will.
Secretly I was convinced it was the My Bloody Valentine guy, but I kept that thought to myself. The gas mask creeped me out, but there’s no way it was Elvis Costello. It didn’t make any sense. I mean, the guy has a talk show now? What is that all about? It couldn’t possibly be him.
“Yes it is,” Anna countered, barely looking up from her book.
I bet her a buck that it wasn’t.
Seventeen minutes later we go off the train. “You owe me a dollar,” she said with such utter matter-of-factness it was worse than if she had gloated. She was right though, of course, it was Elvis all along.
I should have known not to doubt her. She may only be six, but what she lacks in experience she more than makes up for with perception. Her intense attention to detail, her powers of observation, are truly astounding. She didn’t let on at the time, but she’d quickly figured out that if you followed the line created by the rakish angle of Elvis’ porkpie hat, it pointed to an I-beam with a red sign that simply says “Sprinkler.” It’s an unremarkable sign, but the only one like it around and it never, ever moves so once you find it you’re set. You automatically know where you are.
I was too caught up in unabashed celebrity worship, the flashiness of it all, always looking for Brad Pitt or Jamie Foxx or Elvis Costello––even the My Bloody Valentine guy––while Anna had figured it out: Don’t believe the hype. Ignore all the glitz and glamour. Focus on the mundane. Celebrities come and go, but some things never change. Benches, garbage cans, cracks, rusty yellow I-beams, unremarkable red signs. All of these things are steadfast. Unchanging. Perennial. Constant.
The next day I followed her lead. She took a right out of the turnstile, walked past the first set of benches, the garbage can, the next set of benches, finally stopping across from the infamous red “Sprinkler” sign on the rusty yellow I-beam to the right of Elvis Costello and his rakish porkpie hat. Then, glancing down at her feet, she shuffled two steps back to the left, ultimately coming to rest with a yellow paint splotch that looks––to Anna anyway––exactly like a maple leaf, in line with her belly button. “Here,” she said opening her book.
I was only mildly surprised when a few minutes later the E-train arrived and the first door of the third car opened precisely where she was standing. She quickly boarded the train, sat down across the aisle and buried herself in “Uncle Elephant,” not glancing up from the page for the next seventeen minutes. Six stops later, at our stop on 53rd and 3rd, the door to the left of her opened a mere thirty-six inches beyond the up escalator. She got off the train, walked six steps across the platform, turned left, took two steps onto the escalator, looked back at me and said, “Nailed it.” A woman behind us laughed.
“Lie to me,” said the man, “it’s written all over your face.” I didn’t know his name, but I recognized him, vaguely, as some guy I’d seen in a movie, though I couldn’t say which one. His plea fell on deaf ears. Elvis had left the building, having served his term, but the yellow paint splotch remained. It did look just like a leaf. I stood next to Anna and waited.
Two Mondays after that it was Despereaux, the mouse, his sword pointing to the left, back the way we’d come, insisting we’d gone too far. I completely ignored him. Benches, garbage can, benches, sprinkler sign, yellow paint splotch––nailed it again. It all seemed so easy now, so obvious and uncomplicated, even a child could do it. (Make that an unobservant adult with no sense of direction.)
The bottom line is this: if you get on the uptown E-train at 23rd and 8th and you’re planning to get off at 53rd and 3rd and you don’t want to walk at all when the train arrives at your station, look for the third advertisement after the second set of benches just past the black garbage can, find the rusty yellow I-beam, the red sprinkler sign and the paint splotch.
Or else just follow Anna.
Two weeks later it was Elvis Costello: a dreary, rainy Monday. We were confused by his sudden appearance. What happened to Pitt and Foxx? Where could they have gone? Their abrupt, unexpected departure––this sudden changing of the guard––was both disorienting and disheartening. We were alone. Abandoned.
Our debate intensified quickly, becoming a full-blown argument in a matter of minutes, our voices raised against each other and the din of the onrushing A-train. Several passersby raised eyebrows, staring in disbelief, wondering what all the fuss was about. No doubt they knew long before we did that there would come a day when Pitt and Fox would go. How foolish to think it would last! They couldn’t be there forever. It was someone else’s turn.
By Saturday afternoon we still hadn’t settled the issue. Will and Anna said it was Elvis, but I didn’t buy that for a minute. “That’s way too far forward,” I said, “we’ll over shoot it by a mile.”
“No, I don’t think so,” said Will.
Secretly I was convinced it was the My Bloody Valentine guy, but I kept that thought to myself. The gas mask creeped me out, but there’s no way it was Elvis Costello. It didn’t make any sense. I mean, the guy has a talk show now? What is that all about? It couldn’t possibly be him.
“Yes it is,” Anna countered, barely looking up from her book.
I bet her a buck that it wasn’t.
Seventeen minutes later we go off the train. “You owe me a dollar,” she said with such utter matter-of-factness it was worse than if she had gloated. She was right though, of course, it was Elvis all along.
I should have known not to doubt her. She may only be six, but what she lacks in experience she more than makes up for with perception. Her intense attention to detail, her powers of observation, are truly astounding. She didn’t let on at the time, but she’d quickly figured out that if you followed the line created by the rakish angle of Elvis’ porkpie hat, it pointed to an I-beam with a red sign that simply says “Sprinkler.” It’s an unremarkable sign, but the only one like it around and it never, ever moves so once you find it you’re set. You automatically know where you are.
I was too caught up in unabashed celebrity worship, the flashiness of it all, always looking for Brad Pitt or Jamie Foxx or Elvis Costello––even the My Bloody Valentine guy––while Anna had figured it out: Don’t believe the hype. Ignore all the glitz and glamour. Focus on the mundane. Celebrities come and go, but some things never change. Benches, garbage cans, cracks, rusty yellow I-beams, unremarkable red signs. All of these things are steadfast. Unchanging. Perennial. Constant.
The next day I followed her lead. She took a right out of the turnstile, walked past the first set of benches, the garbage can, the next set of benches, finally stopping across from the infamous red “Sprinkler” sign on the rusty yellow I-beam to the right of Elvis Costello and his rakish porkpie hat. Then, glancing down at her feet, she shuffled two steps back to the left, ultimately coming to rest with a yellow paint splotch that looks––to Anna anyway––exactly like a maple leaf, in line with her belly button. “Here,” she said opening her book.
I was only mildly surprised when a few minutes later the E-train arrived and the first door of the third car opened precisely where she was standing. She quickly boarded the train, sat down across the aisle and buried herself in “Uncle Elephant,” not glancing up from the page for the next seventeen minutes. Six stops later, at our stop on 53rd and 3rd, the door to the left of her opened a mere thirty-six inches beyond the up escalator. She got off the train, walked six steps across the platform, turned left, took two steps onto the escalator, looked back at me and said, “Nailed it.” A woman behind us laughed.
“Lie to me,” said the man, “it’s written all over your face.” I didn’t know his name, but I recognized him, vaguely, as some guy I’d seen in a movie, though I couldn’t say which one. His plea fell on deaf ears. Elvis had left the building, having served his term, but the yellow paint splotch remained. It did look just like a leaf. I stood next to Anna and waited.
Two Mondays after that it was Despereaux, the mouse, his sword pointing to the left, back the way we’d come, insisting we’d gone too far. I completely ignored him. Benches, garbage can, benches, sprinkler sign, yellow paint splotch––nailed it again. It all seemed so easy now, so obvious and uncomplicated, even a child could do it. (Make that an unobservant adult with no sense of direction.)
The bottom line is this: if you get on the uptown E-train at 23rd and 8th and you’re planning to get off at 53rd and 3rd and you don’t want to walk at all when the train arrives at your station, look for the third advertisement after the second set of benches just past the black garbage can, find the rusty yellow I-beam, the red sprinkler sign and the paint splotch.
Or else just follow Anna.
04 September 2008
Issue #1: The Lady Byng Memorial Trophy
[Originally posted 4 September 2008 in different form.]
The Lady Byng Memorial Trophy is given each year to the NHL player “adjudged to have exhibited the best type of sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability.” Simply put: whoever racks up the most points with the least penalty minutes wins. Pavel Datsyuk of the Detroit Red Wings has won the trophy the last three years in a row. Paul Kariya, Joe Sakic and Stan “The Man” Makita are just a few of the other stars who, at one time or another, held the Lady Byng Trophy aloft. Wayne Gretzky hoisted the award 4 different times with 3 different teams, including local heroes the New York Rangers. But the biggest, most colorful character to have ever won the award is a guy named Robert “Butch” Goring who played for the New York Islanders from 1979-1985.
A few years ago, when Will was six or seven, we were driving back from a Southwest Lakers game. He was particularly upset that one of the teammates he most admired had taken three penalties that day. He didn’t understand how or why anyone would ever take a penalty under any circumstances, much less three in a single game. The idea was outrageous.
“When I’m in the NHL,” he said, “I’ll never get a penalty, ever.”
“Not even one?” I chided.
“No!” He was emphatic,
“Honey, that’s impossible––”
“No!” he interrupted. “I mean it!”
A year or so after that Will first learned of the Lady Byng Trophy and the “gentlemanly conduct” it embodies. Ever since that time he not only believes he will have a long and illustrious NHL career, he is absolutely convinced he will be awarded the Lady Byng Trophy year after year, the award ceremony/banquet being a mere formality, of course.
He believes with all his heart he will never, ever be called for a single penalty and points to Robert “Butch” Goring––a man he knew by name even before we moved to New York, osmotically, through poring over his numerous hockey record books and stacks of countless hockey cards––as proof that it can be done.
In theory, anyway.
In 1,107 career NHL games Butch Goring recorded just 102 penalty minutes (a miniscule .09 minutes or 5.5 seconds per game), the lowest total, by far, for any player who played at least 1,000 games. Seven different times he tallied a ridiculous of 2 total penalty minutes (a mere one minor penalty) in an entire NHL season. In 1980-81 he had none.
Zero.
Nothing.
Nada.
Not one single penalty minute.
More amazing still, during the Stanley Cup run of that magical season Goring scored 10 goals and added 10 assists in 20 playoff games. He won the playoff MVP “Conn Smythe Trophy” hands down while leading the Islanders to their second of an unprecedented four consecutive world championships.
But despite even all of this, Butch Goring is more often remembered for wearing the same exact helmet from the time he was 12 years old until the end of his pro career, eschewing socks at all costs and sporting retro-futuristic post-modern velcroed skates.
He retired as a player in 1987 and coached sporadically after that. Currently he can be seen in the New York Tri-State Area as color commentator on MSG-TV’s “Hockey Night Live.” He is also Hockey Director of the New York City Cyclones, Manhattan’s premiere youth traveling team.
We officially moved to Manhattan on Monday, September 1st, 2008. Less than 24 hours later the kids started school and Will started hockey.
At promptly three o’clock that first day I picked them both up from school. We stopped for a celebratory “we made it through the first day of school in Manhattan” smoothie, ran back to the apartment, got Will’s hockey gear and boarded the M15 for Sky Rink at Chelsea Piers, roughly 33 blocks south and nearly the entire island, east-west, away. Two busses and 45 minutes later [we had yet to discover the E-train: see NYM #11], we arrived at the same set of piers on the Hudson River where the ill-fated Titanic was to have docked in the spring of 1912, roughly a mile or so south of where Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger miraculously crash-landed US Airways flight 1549 almost 96 years later. [On January 15th, a Thursday, one of the two days a week we don’t have hockey at Chelsea Piers.]
Will hit the ice at 5:30 and skated until seven o’clock with one two minute break. For an hour-and-a-half the NYC Cyclone squirts, peewees and bantams did nothing but skate. There wasn’t a single puck on the ice. For the rest of the kids it was day one of “boot camp,” for Will it was his first day of try-outs.
Wednesday, more of the same. Thursday, they finally saw pucks. (They call it boot camp for a reason.)
“How many more days?” Will asked, stripping off his cold, wet gear.
“Well, tomorrow,” I said. “And Saturday, and….”
“When do I know if I made the team?” he wanted to know.
“Honey, just be patient. They’ll tell us when they tell us.”
A look of doubt crossed his face. Obviously, he was exhausted. And hungry. And more than a little overwhelmed by everything else––the time change, the move, the noise––the endless parade of humanity in all its bewildering forms.
He was definitely not looking forward to the 45 minute bus ride home.
But that all changed in a heartbeat when a character named Butch Goring sauntered over, shook Will’s hand and said, “You look great out there. Guess you’ll be skating with us all year.”
Will had made the team.
He looked up at Butch and said, “Can I have your autograph?”
The Lady Byng Memorial Trophy is given each year to the NHL player “adjudged to have exhibited the best type of sportsmanship and gentlemanly conduct combined with a high standard of playing ability.” Simply put: whoever racks up the most points with the least penalty minutes wins. Pavel Datsyuk of the Detroit Red Wings has won the trophy the last three years in a row. Paul Kariya, Joe Sakic and Stan “The Man” Makita are just a few of the other stars who, at one time or another, held the Lady Byng Trophy aloft. Wayne Gretzky hoisted the award 4 different times with 3 different teams, including local heroes the New York Rangers. But the biggest, most colorful character to have ever won the award is a guy named Robert “Butch” Goring who played for the New York Islanders from 1979-1985.
A few years ago, when Will was six or seven, we were driving back from a Southwest Lakers game. He was particularly upset that one of the teammates he most admired had taken three penalties that day. He didn’t understand how or why anyone would ever take a penalty under any circumstances, much less three in a single game. The idea was outrageous.
“When I’m in the NHL,” he said, “I’ll never get a penalty, ever.”
“Not even one?” I chided.
“No!” He was emphatic,
“Honey, that’s impossible––”
“No!” he interrupted. “I mean it!”
A year or so after that Will first learned of the Lady Byng Trophy and the “gentlemanly conduct” it embodies. Ever since that time he not only believes he will have a long and illustrious NHL career, he is absolutely convinced he will be awarded the Lady Byng Trophy year after year, the award ceremony/banquet being a mere formality, of course.
He believes with all his heart he will never, ever be called for a single penalty and points to Robert “Butch” Goring––a man he knew by name even before we moved to New York, osmotically, through poring over his numerous hockey record books and stacks of countless hockey cards––as proof that it can be done.
In theory, anyway.
In 1,107 career NHL games Butch Goring recorded just 102 penalty minutes (a miniscule .09 minutes or 5.5 seconds per game), the lowest total, by far, for any player who played at least 1,000 games. Seven different times he tallied a ridiculous of 2 total penalty minutes (a mere one minor penalty) in an entire NHL season. In 1980-81 he had none.
Zero.
Nothing.
Nada.
Not one single penalty minute.
More amazing still, during the Stanley Cup run of that magical season Goring scored 10 goals and added 10 assists in 20 playoff games. He won the playoff MVP “Conn Smythe Trophy” hands down while leading the Islanders to their second of an unprecedented four consecutive world championships.
But despite even all of this, Butch Goring is more often remembered for wearing the same exact helmet from the time he was 12 years old until the end of his pro career, eschewing socks at all costs and sporting retro-futuristic post-modern velcroed skates.
He retired as a player in 1987 and coached sporadically after that. Currently he can be seen in the New York Tri-State Area as color commentator on MSG-TV’s “Hockey Night Live.” He is also Hockey Director of the New York City Cyclones, Manhattan’s premiere youth traveling team.
We officially moved to Manhattan on Monday, September 1st, 2008. Less than 24 hours later the kids started school and Will started hockey.
At promptly three o’clock that first day I picked them both up from school. We stopped for a celebratory “we made it through the first day of school in Manhattan” smoothie, ran back to the apartment, got Will’s hockey gear and boarded the M15 for Sky Rink at Chelsea Piers, roughly 33 blocks south and nearly the entire island, east-west, away. Two busses and 45 minutes later [we had yet to discover the E-train: see NYM #11], we arrived at the same set of piers on the Hudson River where the ill-fated Titanic was to have docked in the spring of 1912, roughly a mile or so south of where Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger miraculously crash-landed US Airways flight 1549 almost 96 years later. [On January 15th, a Thursday, one of the two days a week we don’t have hockey at Chelsea Piers.]
Will hit the ice at 5:30 and skated until seven o’clock with one two minute break. For an hour-and-a-half the NYC Cyclone squirts, peewees and bantams did nothing but skate. There wasn’t a single puck on the ice. For the rest of the kids it was day one of “boot camp,” for Will it was his first day of try-outs.
Wednesday, more of the same. Thursday, they finally saw pucks. (They call it boot camp for a reason.)
“How many more days?” Will asked, stripping off his cold, wet gear.
“Well, tomorrow,” I said. “And Saturday, and….”
“When do I know if I made the team?” he wanted to know.
“Honey, just be patient. They’ll tell us when they tell us.”
A look of doubt crossed his face. Obviously, he was exhausted. And hungry. And more than a little overwhelmed by everything else––the time change, the move, the noise––the endless parade of humanity in all its bewildering forms.
He was definitely not looking forward to the 45 minute bus ride home.
But that all changed in a heartbeat when a character named Butch Goring sauntered over, shook Will’s hand and said, “You look great out there. Guess you’ll be skating with us all year.”
Will had made the team.
He looked up at Butch and said, “Can I have your autograph?”
01 May 2008
Running Off The Page
[Originally Published in "A View From The Loft," May-June 2008, Volume 31, Number 6]
For the past 18 years I have worked as a writer. For the first 16 of those years my traditional exercise program consisted of shuffling back and forth from my desk to the coffee pot, riding my bike around the occasional lake and playing catch in the yard with the kids––not exactly your typical “Iron Man” triathlon. But there were deadlines to be met, revisions to be made, clients to be satisfied. And the only way to do that, as they say, was to apply “seat of pants to seat of chair.” Sure, I got the work done, but as my list of credits grew, so did my waistline. I packed in the work and packed on the pounds.
Eventually, I found myself on a treadmill at the Mayo clinic where a doctor 22 years older than me who runs 5 miles a day before work told me bluntly things couldn’t go on like they were. I was overweight and out of shape. My endurance was far too low, my blood pressure far too high. I simply wasn’t fit, he said, and I needed to make a change now.
“Anyway, what do you do?” he asked, filing the results of my test.
“I’m a freelance writer,” I said, still huffing and puffing, “I, uh, basically work for myself.”
“Good,” he curtly replied, “you’ve got a flexible schedule. Plenty of time to work out.”
Yeah, right, I thought. I don’t have enough time to work, let alone work out.
Back in Minneapolis I had to face the facts: even though I always felt busy, I spent hours every day wandering around the house in search of inspiration, responding to chit-chatty e-mails and generally wasting time. I had no excuse. I could easily find time to work-out, I just never did, and that is what needed to change.
Finally, after weeks of putting it off and making increasingly creative excuses, I decided to go for a run. It was a suitably dreary Monday, my writing was going nowhere and I was in a foul mood. I might as well give it a go. So, I strapped on a pair of shoes which to this point had been a mere fashion accessory not actual athletic apparel, and bolted out the front door.
OK, well, I jogged. But slow and steady wins the race and I didn’t want to kill myself the first block. My plan was to run as far as I could, then turn around and walk, crawl or hitchhike home. (Secretly, I dreamt of running to Lyndale Avenue, about a mile and a half from my house, but seriously doubted I could.) Fifteen minutes later I was not only still alive, but a funny thing started to happen. Troublesome lines of dialogue which had been plaguing me for days started to weave themselves into a coherent conversation. New details emerged, a plot point came into focus, a scene began to take shape. I cursed myself. Why had I gone for a run? I should have stayed at home, at my desk, on my computer. I should have kept on writing.
Tired but oddly exhilarated, I made my way up a seemingly endless hill. My legs felt like concrete. Each foot weighed a ton. I struggled to breathe as I glanced up at a street sign: Lyndale Avenue. I laughed. I wanted to stop, but I couldn’t. I felt too good! I turned and ran back home, my brain buzzing with ideas. I shot through the door, went straight to my desk and wrote for an hour. It was bliss. At least, it was, until I tried to stand and immediately crumpled to the floor, my legs crippled by lactic acid. (I had yet to discover the fine art of the cool down.)
Nonetheless, I persevered. Two days later I did it again: another run, another great writing session. Clearly, this wasn’t a fluke. Something was going on here. Before I knew it, running had become an integral part of my writing. I couldn’t wait to start writing, get stuck, go for a run, get unstuck, and go write some more. It really worked. I’d found the secret. I had to tell everyone. It was almost too good to be true. Writing and running, running and writing--––I thought I’d invented something.
Turns out numerous writers had already joined the club.
Michael McNally, Associate Professor at Carleton College and author of the forthcoming book “Honoring Elders: Ojibwe Aging, Authority, and Religion” (Columbia University Press), for example, specifically times his runs to give himself a creative boost. “Not just when I’m flagging physically during the day,” he says, “but when I’m trying to work my way out of a sequencing issue or structural problem. At first, I try to refrain from thinking about anything––I’m just running. But as my head begins to clear, I can sometimes work out the problem. The challenge is getting back to the keyboard while the running buzz is still going.”
Theresa Schwegel, who won the 2005 Edgar Allen Poe Award for best first mystery novel with “Officer Down” (St. Martin’s Minotaur), can’t even conceive of writing without running. For her, they are one in the same. “I aim to do some kind of exercise every day, but running is the only way I work out my mental kinks. When I’m out there, one foot in front of the other, I’m able to shake off distractions and return to my work, clear and confident. For me, the sought-after writing zone depends on the runner’s high.”
Loft instructor and master track advisor Dale Gregory Anderson has run three marathons and thousands of miles over the years. He says he doesn’t depend on the runner’s high, but reports its apparent effects just the same. “For me, running is physical. My mind wanders. I’m easily distracted. I will say, however, that I was running around Lake Calhoun many years ago when a voice came to me: ‘That girl you’ve been reading about in the paper, the one who calls herself Echo and lives in a tree, that’s my sister.’ As it turned out, this became the first sentence of my story ‘The Girl in the Tree,’ which was later published in Alaska Quarterly Review.”
For me, my new found running routine coincided with finishing and later revising a full length screenplay. I’d sit down to write at the start of the day, generally for an hour or two, and go as long as I could. Then, when things bogged down, I’d get up and head out the door. After a mile or two, words would start to come and problems would unkink themselves. The challenge, just like for McNally, was to race back to my computer while the ideas were still percolating and the buzz had yet to recede. Still, I often found myself writing long into the afternoon still in my running gear (and having finally mastered the cool down, I was even able to walk when I was finished).
But the positive effects of exercise on brain activity aren’t just personal or anecdotal, they’re scientific. Numerous recent studies have underscored the correlation between aerobic activity and cognitive function, including that most subjective and elusive function, creativity. Researchers at Rhode Island College found students who exercised immediately before taking the Torrance Creativity Test, perhaps the most objective measure of creative thinking, scored higher than those who didn’t. In fact, those who exercised beforehand consistently outscored those who didn’t even after waiting hours to take the test. It seems the positive impact of exercise on your brain may be both immediate and enduring.
In the short term, exercise lowers stress, increases blood flow to the brain and releases endorphins that not only suppress pain, but give you the feeling of a natural high. In the long term, a consistent exercise routine may even “grow” your brain. A study conducted at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and later published in the International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology found that the number of brain cells in the hippocampus nearly doubled in adult rats who exercised on running wheels for thirty days. In fact, current thinking suggests it may be helpful to think of the brain as yet another muscle. And the best way to make it stronger, researchers find, isn’t Soduko, it’s exercise.
I’d say the writing/exercise routine isn’t for everyone, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Evidence says even the most basic exercise program, even walking, will boost your creativity and provide direct benefits to your work. The results are immediate and tangible. Just don’t get carried away. David Prokop, personal trainer at Twin Cities based Steele Fitness, cautions, “When starting any new exercise program, first consult with your doctor and get a full physical. Second, be clear about your goals. Do you just want to be healthier? Run a race? Lose weight? Whatever you have in mind, consistency is key. Develop a sensible, long-range plan you can actually follow. Make it part of your daily routine, not something you try to squeeze in, or chances are you never will.”
You trust your writer’s ear when hearing work, listen to your body, too. Start your program slowly. Be realistic. Give your body time to adjust to your new routine. Don’t fixate on mileage or speed. “If you go out for a 7 mile run and your heart rate is at 80-90 percent by the second mile, chances are you'll crash and burn,” says Prokop. “Get a heart rate monitor and use it to guide you. It’ll not only help you control the tempo of your workout by constantly monitoring your level of exertion, it’ll help you find and maintain your target heart rate as well.”
I won’t say how much I weighed before my stress test at the Mayo Clinic, but picture a shelf lined with books and you can probably guess I looked a lot more like the unabridged War and Peace than that slim volume of Victorian poetry you inherited from your grandmother. (Now, I at least resemble the Reader’s Digest version.) The writing/exercise routine is my daily foundation. I find myself more energetic, clear-headed and productive. I often write faster and more efficiently than ever before, and when I don’t, I go for a run to work out both my problems and along with my body.
The solitary pursuits of writing and running have a lot in common. Each can be daunting in its own way. It’s often easier to make excuses why not to do the work than it is to actually do it. You have to motivate yourself. After two years, though, I know this much: it is possible to craft leaner, more energetic prose while shaping a leaner, more energetic you. A solid writing/exercise program could be the key to making both your doctor and your editor happy.
How to Calculate Your Target Heart Rate:
Finding your target heart rate begins with finding your maximum heart rate. There are several ways to do it, but the quickest and easiest way is to subtract your age from 220. [e.g. a 40 year old has a max heart rate of 180, a 50 year old 170, etc.] Your “target heart rate” is simply a percentage of your max. Historically, the so-called “fat burning zone” is 60 percent max heart rate, generally thought to be ideal for those most looking to shed unwanted pounds. Newer studies suggest that shorter, high intensity workouts (at 80-85% of your max) may be just as or even more effective. In fact, there may be not such thing as a “fat burning zone.” David Prokop says, “The bottom line is the harder you work, the more calories you burn. Maintaining a higher heart rate for a longer period of time will produce dramatic results. Thirty minutes a day at least three times per week is a must. More often is even better.” (Find more information at www.runnersworld.com)
John Schaidler has written countless TV commercials and industrial films, and is a past winner of The Loft Mentor Series in fiction. He can be seen muttering snippets of dialogue while running along Minnehaha Creek at least 3 times per week.
For the past 18 years I have worked as a writer. For the first 16 of those years my traditional exercise program consisted of shuffling back and forth from my desk to the coffee pot, riding my bike around the occasional lake and playing catch in the yard with the kids––not exactly your typical “Iron Man” triathlon. But there were deadlines to be met, revisions to be made, clients to be satisfied. And the only way to do that, as they say, was to apply “seat of pants to seat of chair.” Sure, I got the work done, but as my list of credits grew, so did my waistline. I packed in the work and packed on the pounds.
Eventually, I found myself on a treadmill at the Mayo clinic where a doctor 22 years older than me who runs 5 miles a day before work told me bluntly things couldn’t go on like they were. I was overweight and out of shape. My endurance was far too low, my blood pressure far too high. I simply wasn’t fit, he said, and I needed to make a change now.
“Anyway, what do you do?” he asked, filing the results of my test.
“I’m a freelance writer,” I said, still huffing and puffing, “I, uh, basically work for myself.”
“Good,” he curtly replied, “you’ve got a flexible schedule. Plenty of time to work out.”
Yeah, right, I thought. I don’t have enough time to work, let alone work out.
Back in Minneapolis I had to face the facts: even though I always felt busy, I spent hours every day wandering around the house in search of inspiration, responding to chit-chatty e-mails and generally wasting time. I had no excuse. I could easily find time to work-out, I just never did, and that is what needed to change.
Finally, after weeks of putting it off and making increasingly creative excuses, I decided to go for a run. It was a suitably dreary Monday, my writing was going nowhere and I was in a foul mood. I might as well give it a go. So, I strapped on a pair of shoes which to this point had been a mere fashion accessory not actual athletic apparel, and bolted out the front door.
OK, well, I jogged. But slow and steady wins the race and I didn’t want to kill myself the first block. My plan was to run as far as I could, then turn around and walk, crawl or hitchhike home. (Secretly, I dreamt of running to Lyndale Avenue, about a mile and a half from my house, but seriously doubted I could.) Fifteen minutes later I was not only still alive, but a funny thing started to happen. Troublesome lines of dialogue which had been plaguing me for days started to weave themselves into a coherent conversation. New details emerged, a plot point came into focus, a scene began to take shape. I cursed myself. Why had I gone for a run? I should have stayed at home, at my desk, on my computer. I should have kept on writing.
Tired but oddly exhilarated, I made my way up a seemingly endless hill. My legs felt like concrete. Each foot weighed a ton. I struggled to breathe as I glanced up at a street sign: Lyndale Avenue. I laughed. I wanted to stop, but I couldn’t. I felt too good! I turned and ran back home, my brain buzzing with ideas. I shot through the door, went straight to my desk and wrote for an hour. It was bliss. At least, it was, until I tried to stand and immediately crumpled to the floor, my legs crippled by lactic acid. (I had yet to discover the fine art of the cool down.)
Nonetheless, I persevered. Two days later I did it again: another run, another great writing session. Clearly, this wasn’t a fluke. Something was going on here. Before I knew it, running had become an integral part of my writing. I couldn’t wait to start writing, get stuck, go for a run, get unstuck, and go write some more. It really worked. I’d found the secret. I had to tell everyone. It was almost too good to be true. Writing and running, running and writing--––I thought I’d invented something.
Turns out numerous writers had already joined the club.
Michael McNally, Associate Professor at Carleton College and author of the forthcoming book “Honoring Elders: Ojibwe Aging, Authority, and Religion” (Columbia University Press), for example, specifically times his runs to give himself a creative boost. “Not just when I’m flagging physically during the day,” he says, “but when I’m trying to work my way out of a sequencing issue or structural problem. At first, I try to refrain from thinking about anything––I’m just running. But as my head begins to clear, I can sometimes work out the problem. The challenge is getting back to the keyboard while the running buzz is still going.”
Theresa Schwegel, who won the 2005 Edgar Allen Poe Award for best first mystery novel with “Officer Down” (St. Martin’s Minotaur), can’t even conceive of writing without running. For her, they are one in the same. “I aim to do some kind of exercise every day, but running is the only way I work out my mental kinks. When I’m out there, one foot in front of the other, I’m able to shake off distractions and return to my work, clear and confident. For me, the sought-after writing zone depends on the runner’s high.”
Loft instructor and master track advisor Dale Gregory Anderson has run three marathons and thousands of miles over the years. He says he doesn’t depend on the runner’s high, but reports its apparent effects just the same. “For me, running is physical. My mind wanders. I’m easily distracted. I will say, however, that I was running around Lake Calhoun many years ago when a voice came to me: ‘That girl you’ve been reading about in the paper, the one who calls herself Echo and lives in a tree, that’s my sister.’ As it turned out, this became the first sentence of my story ‘The Girl in the Tree,’ which was later published in Alaska Quarterly Review.”
For me, my new found running routine coincided with finishing and later revising a full length screenplay. I’d sit down to write at the start of the day, generally for an hour or two, and go as long as I could. Then, when things bogged down, I’d get up and head out the door. After a mile or two, words would start to come and problems would unkink themselves. The challenge, just like for McNally, was to race back to my computer while the ideas were still percolating and the buzz had yet to recede. Still, I often found myself writing long into the afternoon still in my running gear (and having finally mastered the cool down, I was even able to walk when I was finished).
But the positive effects of exercise on brain activity aren’t just personal or anecdotal, they’re scientific. Numerous recent studies have underscored the correlation between aerobic activity and cognitive function, including that most subjective and elusive function, creativity. Researchers at Rhode Island College found students who exercised immediately before taking the Torrance Creativity Test, perhaps the most objective measure of creative thinking, scored higher than those who didn’t. In fact, those who exercised beforehand consistently outscored those who didn’t even after waiting hours to take the test. It seems the positive impact of exercise on your brain may be both immediate and enduring.
In the short term, exercise lowers stress, increases blood flow to the brain and releases endorphins that not only suppress pain, but give you the feeling of a natural high. In the long term, a consistent exercise routine may even “grow” your brain. A study conducted at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and later published in the International Journal of Neuropsychopharmacology found that the number of brain cells in the hippocampus nearly doubled in adult rats who exercised on running wheels for thirty days. In fact, current thinking suggests it may be helpful to think of the brain as yet another muscle. And the best way to make it stronger, researchers find, isn’t Soduko, it’s exercise.
I’d say the writing/exercise routine isn’t for everyone, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Evidence says even the most basic exercise program, even walking, will boost your creativity and provide direct benefits to your work. The results are immediate and tangible. Just don’t get carried away. David Prokop, personal trainer at Twin Cities based Steele Fitness, cautions, “When starting any new exercise program, first consult with your doctor and get a full physical. Second, be clear about your goals. Do you just want to be healthier? Run a race? Lose weight? Whatever you have in mind, consistency is key. Develop a sensible, long-range plan you can actually follow. Make it part of your daily routine, not something you try to squeeze in, or chances are you never will.”
You trust your writer’s ear when hearing work, listen to your body, too. Start your program slowly. Be realistic. Give your body time to adjust to your new routine. Don’t fixate on mileage or speed. “If you go out for a 7 mile run and your heart rate is at 80-90 percent by the second mile, chances are you'll crash and burn,” says Prokop. “Get a heart rate monitor and use it to guide you. It’ll not only help you control the tempo of your workout by constantly monitoring your level of exertion, it’ll help you find and maintain your target heart rate as well.”
I won’t say how much I weighed before my stress test at the Mayo Clinic, but picture a shelf lined with books and you can probably guess I looked a lot more like the unabridged War and Peace than that slim volume of Victorian poetry you inherited from your grandmother. (Now, I at least resemble the Reader’s Digest version.) The writing/exercise routine is my daily foundation. I find myself more energetic, clear-headed and productive. I often write faster and more efficiently than ever before, and when I don’t, I go for a run to work out both my problems and along with my body.
The solitary pursuits of writing and running have a lot in common. Each can be daunting in its own way. It’s often easier to make excuses why not to do the work than it is to actually do it. You have to motivate yourself. After two years, though, I know this much: it is possible to craft leaner, more energetic prose while shaping a leaner, more energetic you. A solid writing/exercise program could be the key to making both your doctor and your editor happy.
How to Calculate Your Target Heart Rate:
Finding your target heart rate begins with finding your maximum heart rate. There are several ways to do it, but the quickest and easiest way is to subtract your age from 220. [e.g. a 40 year old has a max heart rate of 180, a 50 year old 170, etc.] Your “target heart rate” is simply a percentage of your max. Historically, the so-called “fat burning zone” is 60 percent max heart rate, generally thought to be ideal for those most looking to shed unwanted pounds. Newer studies suggest that shorter, high intensity workouts (at 80-85% of your max) may be just as or even more effective. In fact, there may be not such thing as a “fat burning zone.” David Prokop says, “The bottom line is the harder you work, the more calories you burn. Maintaining a higher heart rate for a longer period of time will produce dramatic results. Thirty minutes a day at least three times per week is a must. More often is even better.” (Find more information at www.runnersworld.com)
John Schaidler has written countless TV commercials and industrial films, and is a past winner of The Loft Mentor Series in fiction. He can be seen muttering snippets of dialogue while running along Minnehaha Creek at least 3 times per week.
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