Tag: jan Grue

Running. With Ripley. Believe It Or Not.

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Monday. 4:15 a.m. Up since 3:15 a.m. And for the life of me, I can’t understand why. Monday is a holiday, followed by two weeks vacation, and here I am. Hypnos, where are thou Hypnos? 

I skim through old blog posts. My last running blog post, aka last time I ran, June 6, 2020 —  Running. No More. (For now). Wowza. 15 months ago. 457 consecutive days without running. Like in a Row.

Jan Grue “…but the days slip by at an uncomfortable speed.”

I put on my running gear, and I step out the door. 

68° F, humidity is thick. Eugenides:  “…the air wishing it was water.” Mist hangs low over the street. Exactly, exactly like Ripley’s Believe It or Not.  

You might ask Why? Why this sudden urge to run. And I would say, I have no clue.  But the real Deep State, the subconscious, is whispering, yes you do DK. Yes you do.  Two major, MAJOR, dates approaching.

I put in 1.5 miles, feeling like a ½ marathon.

Soles hurt.
Ankles hurt.
Groins hurt.
Calves hurt.
Knees hurt.
Sciatica? Gone!

Tuesday. This morning. 4:00 a.m. 60° F.  No humidity.  Runner’s weather.  Continue reading “Running. With Ripley. Believe It Or Not.” →

Walking. With Small Details.

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Wednesday morning. 5:56 a.m. Temp, mid-70’s. Muggy.

484 consecutive days. Like in a Row. Morning walk at Daybreak @ Cove Island Park.

Now, do you see that ripple in the water, actually a number of ripples, in the bottom quarter of the photo? They’re the equivalent of Rainbow Smelt in Lake Superior. (I think.) 15 years living here, I’ve never noticed these schools of fish. And now, they’re seemingly everywhere. Water rippling, spinning, bubbling. My eyes darting left and right in search of other schools.

I can’t explain it.

They’ve become important.

Anuk Arudpragasam, from A Passage North: “Suddenly the small details that are glossed over in your usual accounting of life took on an almost cosmic significance, as though your fate could be determined by whether or not you remembered to draw water before it became dark, by whether you hurried to catch the bus or decided to take your time, by whether or not you said yes or no to any of the countless trivial decisions that come only in retrospect, once the event has occurred and nothing can be changed, to take on greater significance.”

Thursday Morning.  I’m between calls. Susan shouts out asking for me to come down stairs. Hurry!

I come barreling down the stairs.

(Sciatica and all, this body can still move when it needs to.)

She’s sobbing. Good God. What happened? Continue reading “Walking. With Small Details.” →

I Live a Life Like Yours

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I started Jan Grue’s new memoir listening to his story on Audible. It’s titled “I Live a Life Like Yours.”

Oh, no Jan. You so do not.

I’m walking listening to his story. Free to take a step, not giving a moment’s consideration to how I keep my balance. And then following this step with another and another and another.

Suffering from Sciatica DK? Put out a bit? YOU are suffering?

Grue was diagnosed as a child with a rare form of spinal atrophy. As Michael J. Fox explains in his book review, “all of the wins in his life are come-from-behind —  a person who is much more than what others see. He discovers that “to be stared at, gawked at, is …to be situated in a narrative that has already been written, and that is told by others.” “The world,” he says, “perceives a body with frail arms, legs locked into certain angles…in a large bulky wheelchair” as not…a whole man…He offers messages of wisdom that will resonate long after you’ve finished the memoir. “At some point or another I stopped thinking about myself as someone who needed repairing.”

Dwight Garner is his book review describes “A Life Like Yours” a quietly brilliant book that warms slowly in the hands. And that it does. I, highly recommend the book.

Let me close with a passage from his memoir.

Since an early age, I had known that I had spinal muscular atrophy… I would like to think myself away from my body, away from my injured, worn ankles. But there is no me that exists apart from this body, in some unmarked form. That body would have lived an entirely different sort of life. And yet it haunts me. It casts another kind of shadow. I shut my eyes and go skiing each winter, I run 10K each morning. I dash off to another country at a moment’s notice, grab my carry-on, run out the door and hail a taxi, make my way quickly through the security check and sprint to the gate. I haven’t made arrangements for where I’ll stay when I arrive, I climb into a taxi and simply say: Drive me somewhere I haven’t been before.

I open my eyes.

— Jan Grue, I Live a Life Like Yours: A Memoir. B. L. Crook (Translator). (FSG Originals, August 17, 2021)