Every New Beginning Comes From Some Other Beginning's End

...At least that's how the song goes. But sometimes I think it's spot on.

I started singing these lyrics in my head when I woke up this morning (the song is Closing Time by Semisonic). I must have been in some kind of sleeping, air-conditioning induced daze when I rolled out of bed because I made the mistake of reaching into my closet for a pair of jeans. Pants? Seriously? I can't remember the last time I wore pants in this state. It wasn't until I opened the oven door, er, I mean, the front door, when I realized what I had done. But alas, I'd gone too far, so I breathed in the last bit of a/c and headed over to the Communities in School central office to sign a bunch of paperwork and officially complete my year of service.

A beginning's end: AmeriCorps, year one, a year that began last fall, in the bag. It seems totally surreal that I've already spent a year working for this organization, but I'm happy to think that, despite the fact that I'll be at a new school, with a new supervisor, new coworker, and new students, I myself will not be a total newb. So it's not REALLY an end, but since AmeriCorps is a yearly contract, I DID get oficially recognized for completing a year of service, Ta da! So here's to the end of one service, and the beginning of a whole new year to come!

Another beginning's end: Back in March, about two weeks after I completed the Austin marathon, I got the itch to run again. For days right after the race I'd stare are my shoes and think, maybe I'll go for a quick one. But then I'd stand up and my legs would overpower my brain with an adamant "no." Stubborn as I am, I decided to let this one go, and plop back down on the couch. Finally after what seemed like ages of not lacing up my asics, I went out for a short 3 mile run. When that felt ok, I went for another one. And then for a 4 mile run. And then for another one. Before I knew it, I was back on a running crusade.

I even started meeting up with my tuesday morning running buddies again. None of us were training for anything anymore, we weren't meeting for a speed workout anymore, we simply were doing it for the pleasure of socializing with each other in the pitch darkness of the trail at 6 a.m. once a week. That's totally normal, right? So there we were, bopping along one morning, when I said, hey guys, soooo, I'm thinking of running the San Francisco Marathon. In return I received a lot more pep and excitement than I would have imagined so early in the morning. The others wanted to go too! Cool. So a couple weeks later, after vacillating about the topic, I couldn't come up with any good reasons not to go, so I signed up. And then one friend signed up. And then the other signed up!

After the excitement of signing up and making it official passed, it started to get warmer. April was nice, and then May rolled around and it started to get a little uncomfortable to run. Ah May, killing me softly with your heat. Next things I knew, it was June, no more of this "softly" business, just flat out killing me with your heat. We started to wonder, what the eff were we thinking we decided to sign up for this race? Training in the heat? In Texas?

And now he were are, 4 months later, and I just went on my last run of the training, and packed up my sneakers with 355 miles, 55 activities, and over 33,000 calories logged since March. The end of training? I say logged because sometimes I find myself falling into the woes of what people are starting to call "zen running," where you go out with just you and yourself, no music, no Garmin GPS watch to record my every step, no nothing. There were mornings when I'd wake up and the last thing I wanted to do was monitor my pace, my time -- numbers numbers numbers, gaaaah! So I'd lace up and run out the door with no watch, nothing to look at but the road. And so, I hold no record of these runs other than in my head and on my legs.

I'm actually quite shocked that these Asics sneaks I've just packed up, the same ones that got me through my first marathon, with 700+ miles pounded on them since last December, are still in condition and ready to leave with me this morning to head westbound for another 26.2. Send it around again!

My goal? I feel like if I say it out loud, if I even write it, I'll jinx myself. But then I realize that this is a goal many runners share, it's no secret, and it is something to be a little scared of, but also something to look forward to, to strive for, to fight for. So, if I could get my way this Sunday, what I would want the most would be to qualify for Boston, to run 9 minutes faster that I have and cross the finish to make the standard before they change it in september and make it even harder to break into. Sometimes I think, 9 minutes, that's NOTHING. And other times, when my feet hurt, I feel dehydrated, my stomach aches, and I still have more miles to go, I think holy shit, 9 minutes is IMPOSSIBLE.

I recently read a quote about a runner and the Boston Marathon that really stuck with me. She said: "Isn't it the weirdest thing? Something so damn hard, so humbling, so fickle, so painful, is also the thing we seek on purpose?" That's exactly it. The harder it is to achieve, the fewer people can get there, the more restrictions there are, the harder we have to work for it, the more we want it. It's like when you're a kid and your mom tells you you can't have a cookie... well damn, you think, now I really want the cookie.

So here I go, curiously feeling less nervous than I did in february, perhaps because I've already surpassed that initial fear of the unknown 26.2. Of course I'm sure I will wake up tomorrow morning and head over to the course at 5 a.m. filled with race-day jitters, but I'll try my best to keep in mind the following thought:

"The runner's greatest asset, apart from essential fitness of body, is a cool and calculating brain, allied to confidence and courage." - Franz Stampfl

On your marks, get set....

"Why Do You Travel?" Asked the New York Times

Not long ago, I was browsing the Travel section of the New York Times, without a motive really, other than perhaps my constant thirst for a new travel destination with the very limited funds that I have.

So there I was, reading along, when I came across an article titled "Why do you Travel? Share your Stories." A contest. The idea was for readers to submit short essays describing why they travel, and whether they have been particularly enlightened, surprised, or changed by a travel experience.

As soon as I read this, there was no doubt in my mind about the single most enlightening trip I've made: Chile. Now there are pages and pages and pages I could write about my time there, and all the wonderful, scary, and random things that I went through while I was there. But in light of the work I've been doing with AmeriCorps, I found the best way to keep the essay brief was to talk about the world apart from the great metropolis that you can discover on a single subway ride. And so I said:

I travel because I’m curious. I travel because I have a never-ending urge to see what’s around the corner, to get a glimpse of something new. I travel because I want to give my mind an escape, a reason to be challenged, to think about something different, to ask questions, to get confused, and if I’m really lucky, to completely shut off. This is maybe the same reason why I run – because I want to feel unleashed on my own two feet, lost in my own mind and the sole determiner of where my next step will land.

It was this curiosity and this desire to throw the tourist guidebook out the window and find my own road map that led me to Santiago, Chile. I was more than surprised when what started out as a five-month volunteering experience turned out to be the very trip that pulled me eyes open and dragged me into the reality of economic disparity that I knew existed but never envisioned to witness so distinctly.

I am a native of Argentina, so I have learned, lived and noticed, without doubt, the differences between South and North America – economically, culturally, and even racially. But I never really saw it the way I did until I was living in downtown Santiago in an apartment building with a rooftop pool. Now don’t get me wrong, this was the smallest apartment for three people I have ever seen, but it had wireless internet, a clean bathroom, and solid walls that on the twelfth floor of the building didn’t even suffer from a minor crack when we were hit by a magnitude 8.8 earthquake. Rather, the 15-story skeleton swayed like a flag in the wind and brought itself to a controlled, soft stop after the gruesome four-minute quake.

What was most enlightening about this trip was that every morning I would wake up in this modern, structurally sound, adequately equipped apartment and walk five minutes to get on one subway for half an hour, switch to another subway, ride that one for another half hour, while watching the city get farther and farther, and the mountains get closer and closer, to arrive in Puente Alto, a poverty-stricken suburb of Santiago.

From there, it was a 15-minute walk through vendors, barking dogs and graffiti-covered walls to the final destination – an iron door surrounded by a wall of bricks stacked in a way that looked like the tail end of a game of Jenga, topped off with a line of barbed wire. A wall, that coincidentally, did not survive the earthquake the way my apartment building did, but rather, in true Jenga form, collapsed into a pile of rubble at the shake of the ground.

Behind this fragile wall lived 65 teenage girls, victims of psychological and physical abuse – angered, scared, intimidated by their traumatizing pasts, lacking the trust to open up to outsiders. But they were much more than that – what I came to find over time was that most of the girls really did want to share their stories, laugh, giggle, be silly, receive positive attention, talk, and simply, have a new friend.

During my five months in Santiago, I believe I was able to build relationships and make an impact at least in some of these girls’ lives, but never without closing that iron door behind me each day, walking away from the barbed wire, back to the subway, and heading home into my own reality with a hint of guilt –guilt from leaving the girls behind, better grasping the conditions they lived in, and with a better understanding of what Santiago really was like, and what really existed beyond tourist attractions.

How could there be such a gap within one metropolis? And we’re not even talking the poorest of the poor nations in the world here – in fact, Chile is one of the most economically advanced nations in South America, and yet, this immense difference was palpable – and it only took me less than 1 dollar of subway fare to find this out, to be thrown into this enlightening reality.

In a country that has so much beauty, that is so skinny that you can get from the Andes to the Pacific coast or from your apartment to the country next door in a short bus ride, that is famous for its wine and it’s Patagonia hikes – why wasn’t everything thriving as it should be? Why was one subway ride the ticket to another galaxy?

I can, without a doubt, say that this experience changed me, how I think, and how I differentiate tourism from travel, stories from reality. This experience was what today leads me to lose myself in new destinations. I suffer from a never-ending itch to travel, to see what I can find next, and where I can feel that sense of enlightenment again, where I can feel so motivated, puzzled, and intrigued for new adventures by one subway ride again. 

So, I didn't win the contest, and my essay was not published in the New York Times, but it was worth the writing just to get myself to sit down, and more than a year later look back on my time in Chile. 

Interestingly enough, just last week, VE Global, this organization I volunteered with, had a contest as well, where they asked ex-volunteers to post a picture (extra points for wearing a VE shirt) and give a brief description of where they are now. I thought this was a super cool idea, and a great way to find out where VE alumns have gone -- all over the world, really. 

And so I told my story. I wrote about how much I miss everyone over there -- the other volunteers, the girls, the people at the home I worked with, pretty much everything about Santiago....except of course the huge earthquake (a great story, but not one I ever want to re-live). I wrote about the sadness I felt when I found out the home where I worked, the one filled with 65 young girls, closed down just last month, forcing these girls to re-locate and find a new place to call home. I wrote about what I do now, the great organization I've been fortunate to work with, Communities in Schools, it's empowering mission to keep kids in school, and my efforts in running a marathon to achieve a personal running goal but also to raise money and more importantly, awareness of what this organization does. 

To my great surprise, and contrary to my New York Times experience, I won this contest! I think the picture, greeting everyone from one of Austin's best known murals (and let me tell you, there are murals everywhere), sporting a VE shirt, and jumping for the warmth VE makes me feel, was really what did it. What did I win? A free VE shirt. Sweet! More importantly what did I win? The chance to bring back memories, to share memories, and to feel proud of where those memories have taken me. 

Happy greetings, and cheers to travel, y'all!