February 17, 2020

Nearly every Sunday morning for nearly 30 years, my husband and I set out for our Sunday Run. After an hour or so with coffee and a variety of newspapers, in front of a fire in cold months or on the screened porch in warmer months, we dress for our run. It is a ritual even our dog, Sully, recognizes. When the first of us, usually Dave, moves to get ready to run, the panting, whimpering and sneezing begins. Sully’s, not mine. You see, Sully joins us on our Sunday runs. We are lucky to live in a rural area, near a road less travelled where Sully can run untethered.

We run on other days of the week, but Sunday is the only run we really count on to do together. We run for one stated purpose: to stay in relatively good shape. Few things can get in the way of our weekly date. Childbirth, a broken bone and bad weather have interfered. But after 1,000 (give or take) Sundays, I think our Sunday runs accomplish far more than just our stated goal.

It is a little like our therapy. It is hard to finish a run in a bad mood. Endorphins are really good at pushing out the negative thoughts and letting good ones in. While we are never racing, our Sunday runs are self-affirming. It feels really good to put down three or four miles no matter what the pace. Although, I am a little jealous that Dave can still set sites on getting a little faster when he wants to. He can go faster, but I can go further. I have a few half-marathon medals in my closet that he doesn’t. I have never been in them to win them but finishing a half marathon is uniquely satisfying.

The aforementioned broken bone kept me off the road for much longer than it took for the bone to heal. I am a long way from being back to top form, but I am back to feeling the benefits of those endorphins. I wonder if I’ll be able to do another half. Sometimes, it seems possible but that isn’t the goal of my running right now. I run as much for my head as I do for my body.

The fact is, running can be boring but I rarely listen to music or podcasts when I run. The silence forces me to think. At the start of each run I try to get a little something in my head to think through. Sometimes I tease out answers to questions about work or think of writing topics and form outlines as I run. I believe my most productive writing comes from my Sunday Runs. I also think about vacation plans, my kids, chores that need tackling and my kids some more.

After we finish our Sunday runs and Dave and I have more to talk about with each other. It seems both of us have thought through something, had an idea or made a plan. As empty nesters, I think this is maybe the most important but unstated purpose of our Sunday run. I think it helps us keep our marriage, like our bodies, in relatively good shape. Here’s to 1,000 more (give or take) Sunday runs.

June 27, 2022

Since Friday, June 24, I have had a mildly sick feeling in my stomach. I know the cause. It’s the Supreme Court ruling overturning the federal right to a legal abortion. This sickness in my gut is not keeping me from doing anything. I have been going about my normal daily activities. I had a lovely visit with my twenty-something daughter who lives in a state directly and immediately effected but the ruling. (Her situation is a topic for another day.) I am even getting some solid exercise in which, if I was truly ill, I wouldn’t be able to do. Then it hit me on my run this morning. That sick feeling, this is what oppression feels like.

Every time I think about this upheaval of a women’s right to choose, there it is, that pang of feeling a little bit sick. I have felt dread and apprehension before, many times but ultimately, I have control over those feelings and absolutely know how to overcome them. It’s simple. Face the task, at hand and get on with it.

This is different. This feeling is a reminder that I am viewed less than a whole person. I am a person of lesser value less the self-righteous men and women who feel their righteousness is more valuable than my humanness. This is what oppression feels like.

Overturning Roe V. Wade is not going to affect me directly in terms of forced birth, but it still affects me as a woman, a mother of a son and a daughter and it affects me as a person who works with children and young adults. People in there 20’s 30’s and 40’s have lives full of promise, opportunity and adventure ahead of them that may or may not include parenthood.  Their choices to delay or forego parenthood do not matter to the men and women in power who are making these decisions. Their choices are meaningless. There plans have no worth. This is what oppression feels like.

My grandmother and great aunt were suffragettes. Their participation and in a system that oppressed them means more to me now than ever before. I had a vision of them in their period-style clothing complete with fantastic hats marching in support of a woman’s right to vote. Now I realize they probably had the same sick feeling of oppression in their guts. The men surrounding them viewed them as less than. My grandmother and aunt were emboldened revolutionaries pushing a boulder forward. Finally in 1920, they pushed that boulder across the finish line.

One hundred and two years later, in 2022, we have just had that boulder rolled backwards and it is holding us down. That boulder on top of us . . .This is what oppression feels like.

Writing about the way things used to be “in the old days” may a bit hackneyed but here I go. I’m not talking about my childhood when, yes, I drank from a hose and rode bikes with the neighborhood kids until dark. I am thinking about the way things used to be when my son was a kid. . . way back in 2014.

There are a few awkward days just after the end of the year when you have to be at work, but kids’ summer camps and activities have not begun for. But I work at a school! There’s a playground, a gymnasium, a library and air conditioning! Son, you’re coming to work with me.  Oh, and why not bring the dog.

I work at a gem of an independent school. It’s in a rural town on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and the school, Kent School is located alongside the Chester River. It truly is school the way school is supposed to be.

My middle school aged son and dog are with me on a hot day in June. My colleague brought her middle school sons and dog with her to work as well. Three twelve-year-old boys and two retrievers. These are the ingredients of the Tom Sawyer Days. Shooting baskets in the gym lasts for about thirty minutes. The playground, maybe thirty more. The library, no way! By 9:30 a.m. they are bored. The river calls. As a school administrator, I know this is expressly not allowed. As a parent, I do something that could get me, and these kids in trouble. I turn a blind eye. And the Tom Sawyer Days begin.

What could possibly go wrong? Spoiler alert, nothing went wrong. These kids experienced total freedom that day. I do not know all the details of the day because remember, I turned a blind eye. I do know that they fished successfully, catching catfish and a skate that gave a good fight. They were thrown back. The boys swam when they got hot. They jumped off the dock, another rule broken. And I am pretty sure they jumped off the roof of the boathouse on that dock. If I was there, I would have forbidden it with my stern, mean mom voice. I am so glad I was not there to steal that thrill of a 15-foot plunge into cooling waters. Yes, someone could have gotten hurt, or someone could have reported them for trespassing. That didn’t happen and they are left with an indelible memory of a childhood adventure.

Way back in 2014, turning a blind eye was an option for parents. I wonder if it is now. Parents have grown accustomed to knowing what their children are doing every minute of every day. I’m not judging them. Families were all together practically non-stop since March of 2019. It’s hard to unknow that habit of constant contact topped with a healthy dose of constant worry about their well-being. Instead of the gift of turning a blind eye, it’s more like a constantly watchful eye for parents now.

I am so grateful for the simplicity of that day spent unsupervised; fishing, swimming and yes,  trespassing. Tom Sawyer days are a rare gift and that is the sad ending to this story.

Note: I began this essay before the Uvalde school shooting which stole the lives of 19 children and two adults. I put the finishing touches on it in the days after it, thinking more deeply about the gift of childhood. Tom Sawyer Days seem simultaneously frivolous and monumentally important.