After a Half Marathon Walk: Mulling What Matters

The meaning I am finding in the life I've been given isn't going to come from extravagant gestures. It comes, the way grace comes, every day, step by step, ordinary moment by ordinary moment. That is the lesson I learned over the weekend, when my husband and I participated in a half marathon in San Antonio, Texas.

We had trained for this race for months, spending our Saturday and Sunday mornings together, walking and running through parks by the river in our neighborhood. The plan was to meet up with dear old friends in San Antonio for the Rock and Roll series' half marathon. My friend Meredith is a diehard half marathon walker and the weekend was a way to join her and to celebrate her husband's fiftieth birthday. She and her husband, whom we met as engaged couples in Raleigh, NC, are raising their children  outside Indianapolis. They walk much faster than we do and were several corrals ahead of us.

On Half Marathons and the Potentate of Time

Today: John Lynch Bridge, Piscataway, NJ

This morning, in subfreezing temperatures, my husband and I completed eight miles of walking, punctuated by tenth-of-a-mile runs. Tonight, after our two-hour naps, I went to 5 p.m. Mass at our parish, not remembering until I showed up that this Sunday is the Feast of Christ the King.

Walking: Grieving And Rejoicing

I've spent many hours walking this summer - through my neighborhood, along a canal in Indianapolis, down a mountain in Vermont, and through many, many parks in New Jersey. By the time summer is over, I will have logged nearly 300 miles. This is happening in part because my husband and I are training to walk a half-marathon in December and in part because I have been grieving. And so I walk and I pray and I grieve.

I've walked with my husband, and with my friend Meredith, but most of those miles I have walked alone. Something is soothing about being out in nature, using my legs and my arms, hearing my own breathing and feeling the sweat pour down my face. It's a reminder that every breath is a gift from the One who loved us into being.

Rambles in Bedford, NY and A Piece of Unsolicited Advice

On a visit to my nearby parents, I walked and jogged about 10 miles over the past 24 hours, up and down Middle Patent Road in Bedford Village, New York. Now the site of million-dollar homes, this forested neighborhood was a flashpoint  during the American Revolution when British burned the entire village of Bedford to the ground.  

Middlesex Greenway: A Little Thunder Road, a Little Ave Maria

 Yesterday, while our younger son attended a preseason soccer camp at St. Joe's High School, I walked the Middlesex Greenway, a two-year-old new ribbon of paved walkway that runs 3.5 miles from Metuchen to Woodbridge. This is one of the prettiest vistas I found along the trail.

My Misbegotten Hike Down Mount Killington

After a breath-taking gondola ride up,  I managed a few pictures during our three-hour trek down 4,241 foot Mount Killington in Vermont because I wanted to get something, anything, from this physically and emotionally painful experience. I keep trying to think of some kind of metaphoric meaning to this ill-conceived afternoon. I cannot. Can you? At this point, standing up is my personal challenge. 

On Valuing Our Views of Home

"The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is 

at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.” 

– G.K. Chesterton

Summers find me traveling. Last summer, I flew to Alabama and drove with our younger son to Upstate New York.  The summer before my husband and our sons spent time in Lancaster County,  Pennsylvania. This summer, my journeys have included driving to Indiana with my husband and will soon include a visit to Vermont for a family reunion. Every place I visit, I go on long walks. In fact, my husband and I are training to walk a half marathon in San Antonio in December. 

It's easy to see the notice the beauty of  unfamiliar places. The trick, however, is to see familiar places in a new way. Today I took a long (5.5 mile) midday walk with our dog.  I tried very hard to notice the views in front of me.  Here is the photo I shot in a county park in our town, a park where I have spent dozens, if not hundreds, of hours since Greg and I moved here nearly two decades ago. Pretty, isn't it?! 

Easter Afternoon in Helyar Woods

My husband and I hadn't been to Helyar Woods together in years. I remember going with our sons when our puggle was a puppy; Greg doesn't remember the last time we walked the woods together and neither do I.

This 43-acre patch of old growth forest sits hard against U.S. Route One in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Easter afternoon seemed the right time to wander these trails.

In Manhattan: Sunny Day, Everything's A-OK

I decided not to bring my camera or my cell phone today into Manhattan, where our family spent a spectacular day celebrating our older son's 17th birthday. I wanted to fully engage my eyes and ears in what we were doing and experiencing and not have the filter of my electronics. I'm glad I did. 

Six Mile Run and the Seasons of Marriage

As anyone who has been married for a while knows, marriage has seasons: the early years, the years with babies and toddlers, and so on. Right now, my husband and I have two teenaged boys and no travel soccer on our family calendar any more. This means our weekends are wide open.

Tonight: Palm Beach Lake Trail

Tonight's walk. The photo doesn't begin to capture the beauty of this walk, called Palm Beach Lake Trail, along Lake Worth Lagoon in Palm Beach, Florida. 

Tonight, my husband and I were among the few walkers/runners/cyclists on this four-mile stretch of flat pavement that weaves between Palm Beach Lake to the west and mansions hidden behind enormous hedges to the east. It was mostly us and the salamanders. I'd like to return on another visit to Florida and do the whole 8 miles round trip.

Walking Over the Hudson River

Once upon a time, the Poughkeepsie railroad bridge was the first bridge of any kind to span New York State's Hudson River from the Atlantic Ocean to Albany. Opened in 1889, its promoters claimed it was the longest bridge in the world.

Now the  Hudson, which flows from upstate New York to New York City, is spanned by many bridges. and the old Poughkeepsie railroad bridge is the world's longest pedestrian bridge.

On an overcast afternoon earlier this month, my husband and I walked that bridge, dubbed the Walkway Over the Hudson. This project is an excellent example of how preserving historic sites can save money and revitalize an area. It would have cost $50 million to tear the bridge down; transforming the bridge into a state park cost $38.8 million.

Princeton's Mountain Lake Preserve: Swallowtails and Stalking a Blue Heron

After dropping our son's bass bow off with a bow maker in Titusville, NJ today, our dog and I hiked the Mountain Lakes Nature Preserve in Princeton. (More later on the bow maker: the man is deserving of a whole post). Even though I drove our sons to private elementary school in Princeton for five years, I never knew about this 74-acre park close to the downtown. I found out about it from a website called bringfido.com, which offers tips on where to hike with your dog. I had several unexpected encounters on the walk.

At Mohonk: Thinking About Fitness and the Inexhaustibility of Human Desire

This summer, I've been determined to get fit. Given my excess weight, I see my battle as a life-or-death struggle to stay healthy for my husband and our sons. In addition to swimming 30 minutes a day, I've been strength training with the help of a personal trainer and spending an hour a day on the treadmill, trying my best to increase the pace and incline of  the treadmill. This morning, on a hike in New Paltz, New York, I was reminded, once again, that whatever endeavor we humans undertake, nothing but the Infinite will satisfy us. 

On My Midday Walk: Confused by this Crustacean

Today, taking a break from my online graduate classes, I took our dog for a long walk in a county park by the Raritan River.  On my hike back, I encountered three brothers with their mom, leaning over something by a stream in the park. Upon closer inspection, I saw they had captured some sort of crustacean and had put it in a plastic bag with water. They told me it was a lobster; at first I thought it was a crab, but later I realized it looks nothing like a crab.

Theme Thursday: Green

Linking up with Cari for Theme Thursday! As soon as I saw Paula's photo of a boardwalk in Alaska, I had to share my own boardwalk, in my adopted state of New Jersey.

I took this photo last June, at the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, which sits off an interstate between the high school where I teach and my home.

Seven Quick Takes For Friday

1.  Please pray for the soul of my sister-in-law Barbara's father, who passed away Wednesday at age 71 of a heart attack. His name is Wilfredo Salvador and he and his wife raised their five children in Dumaguete City in the Philippines. You might remember I wrote about one of his grandchildren, Brennan Kyle Alcantara, who was miraculously rescued from flood waters during Typhoon Sendong.

 May the Angels lead him into Paradise. 
May the Martyrs receive him at his coming 
and take him to Jerusalem, the Holy City. 
May the Choirs of the Angels receive him, 
and may he, with the once poor Lazarus, 
have rest everlasting. Amen.

Sunday Morning Walk in Neshanic Station

The word Neshanic comes from the Algonquin language and  means "double stream." 

Westmoreland Sanctuary: Magnificence on a Summer Afternoon

While our older son did some cycling, our younger son and I went hiking today. Yes. Today. During an impossible heat wave.  I wanted to share some of the pictures we took on our hike.

We waited until 4 p.m. to head to Westmoreland Sanctuary, a 640-acre nature preserve that straddles Bedford and Mount Kisco,  New York. The preserve is a few miles from my parents' home and we are visiting with them for a few days.

How Grace Grounds Friendships

Another day, another hike. This time, I hiked with a mom. Our sons are each other's longest and dearest friensds, having met in nursery school.

In some respects, we moms could not be more different.

Joe (Kaz) Kazimierczyk 

Canal at Griggstown