Blessing a Running Road with One Less Crow

Question of the week: How do you reclaim a place with memories of sorrow?

I recently read a piece by Martha Beck on how to mentally rewrite your tragedies so that you can find meaning even in the random badness that sometimes happens to us. In the case Beck describes, a woman is able to find meaning in a car accident so that she doesn’t have to stay stuck in fear or sadness. This seemed a good idea at the time I read the article. Now I’m considering how to apply the idea to a Sad Thing that recently happened.

I am looking for this meaning because a death ruined my favorite running route. In fact, most of my running routes are ruined because the Sad Thing happened on a road I run which all of my routes stem from or lead toward. This road is like a spine with arms that grow from it or like the trunk of a tree that that lead to the branches of the other roads I follow.

I was running down this road on one of the terrific evening runs I sometimes experience. The weather was pleasantly warm, the air was turning fall crisp and my feet were flying. At that best of moments when I had almost crested the top of the hill on my tree trunk road, a crow flapped out at me from nearly under my left foot.

After jumping up and over, my heart beating harder than it had from the hill, I stopped to take a closer look. My tree trunk road was not a main road but cars kept zipping past. The young crow flapped its wings uselessly each time, unable to get up off the grass and gravel where it sat, one foot splayed out to the side.

I stood to the side wracking my brains for what could be done for the little guy. His eyes were bright. He was clearly young though full sized and clearly stuck in this sad place where the cars came far too close and too often.

I googled with the phone I had just been using for Pandora, but wildlife rehab places are few and far between and not open after 7:00pm.

Finally, I sprinted home to call a relative who knows birds. He wisely and kindly told me that there wasn’t much to do and that the fellow crows would likely take care of him. I tried to relax and went to bed only slightly achy from the sprint and the thought of leaving the crow in the dark.

The next day after taking my kids to school I drove back thinking I would check on the crow to see if I could find a way to help him.

I found him still alert but not flapping. He’d run out of energy. And there was nothing I knew to do, so I again tried the rehab center who kindly told me to drive him there. I did. He was paralyzed and had to be put to sleep. Maybe he had been hit by a car. Maybe he fell out of the tree while trying to fly. Anyway, he’s gone.

I suppose I’m hoping that by writing this post, I’ll be able to run past that spot again. I’m not sure if it’s a way of making meaning or just, as I have sometimes done, a way of cleansing a spot with painful memories. I know I’m not alone in the need for this. Associated Ministries in Tacoma will often bless the sites of violent crimes.

Although my crow death might be small in the scheme of things, I am thinking that finding a practice of letting go of pain is something with which everyone can find a connection. Here’s to another fabulous run in my future and to peace for us all.

 

D*@# you, John Green: An Open Letter About THE FAULT IN OUR STARS

Warning: The open letter is full of spoilers. If you haven’t read the book, be warned.

Dear John Green,

Darn you. Darn you for writing a book that made me cry out loud.

Darn you for writing a book that kept my behind stuck in the chair on a day off when I should have been cleaning, so when the neighbor came over to give me his garden fresh tomatoes and cucumbers, he had to look away from the sight of my entryway.

Darn you for writing the things about the Battle and the Fight against cancer which is a part of our own bodies. I have been thinking those things since my dad died “when the cancer, which was made of him, finally stopped his heart, which was also made of him.” I could not find the words that you did through Hazel.

Darn you for writing a book so true that now I must miss Hazel and Augustus, too.

Darn you for your brilliance, courage and humanity that you are able to use so well.

Darn you for getting me to care so much about a story that my heart aches.

Darn you. Having this as a library book won’t be enough. I’ll need to buy it.

And darn you for becoming so deservedly popular that you don’t answer your mail. Not even from your mother. If I sent this to you directly, it would only end up in a slush pile like Van Houten’s. Darn you for that, too.

In reality, you can substitute ‘thank’ for all the ‘darns’ in this letter. But, honestly, as I stood stunned in my kitchen after Augustus died, I first thought, “D*#% you.” You left a scar with this book, Mr. Green. It’s not a scar I regret having. I like my choice to read your book. But that scar is deep, and it is still tender.

Most Sincerely,

Karrie

A Review: The Carpet People by Terry Pratchett

Terry Pratchett is a name I’ve heard over the years but not someone I had read before. When I saw that one of my  favorite writers Neil Gaiman had worked with Pratchett, I decided to check him out. The Carpet People caught my eye and so I brought it home from the library — first as the audio read by Tony Robinson and then checking out the book when I could not listen fast enough. The illustrations by the author were a marvelous bonus to the print version. 

I loved his language. As we listened and drove to Lake Tipsoo, Robinson read: “The carpet was big. But the carpet was…everything. It didn’t count. It was too big to have a size. But the High Gate Land was small enough to be really huge.” And the High Gate Land turns out to be a penny.

I adored the idea of teensy tiny people living in the carpet at the mercy of Fray which, as far as I can tell, is what happens when we beyond giants step on a section of carpet.

In an author’s note, Pratchett says that the “book has two authors, they were both the same person.” He originally wrote it when he was seventeen and then revised it considerably at 43. I’m intrigued by how well he did at 17 and then how far he’s come since then.

Bits flew off in different directions and, at times, I noticed the fact that the first author was only 17. It made me want to see how his writing develops and check into this Discworld business. I’m betting I’ll be impressed and may need to find another reader to do the English accents that my inner reading voice so often falters on when I look at the print version.