Paved with Good Intentions…

Hello again.

Recovery seems to be a funny thing. I suspect I didn’t help myself very much. In the weeks following my operation people kept telling me how well I looked, and I have to say I felt wonderful. I was on a serious high.  I may now have tracked down the reasons for it:

1)      I waited an awful long time for that operation. I was very ready for it, and raring to get started on the life it was going to leave me able to have.

2)      As an afleet of sorts my body responds to challenges by releasing endorphins. I suspect there were quite a few of them sloshing around.

3)      I was still on the meds. Partly residues in my system and partly the ones they gave me to take when I came out.

Being fit has had a major influence on my recovery. When I compared myself to the people around me I knew I was doing well. I was up and walking (a little) the day after the operation. Being a pig headed sort of woman I decided that meant I could do anything and, sure enough, within ten days of getting home I was out hindering the operation of a half marathon I was the nominal Race Director for. I felt fine, although doing very little definitely took a lot out of me. I didn’t quite realise how much until I turned out for another run a couple of weeks ago. A number of people that I last saw at the race came over to tell me how much better I was looking now. Oops.

Four weeks of feeling fabulous led me to Easter where I put a lot of effort into a family day in a hurricane by the River Thames and having my sons home from University. When they went back I crashed. Big time. Mentally and physically I could do nothing for a fortnight. Occasionally I would crawl off the couch and put a brave face onto some commitments, then go home and beat myself up for being so soft. Another week and half has put it into perspective. The black passed and my usual sunnily optimistic (irritating and deluded) self bounced back. Hi. You can’t see, but I’m waving rather manically from the other side of the screen.

A clean bill of health from the surgeon brings me to the last stage of my recuperation – getting my life back. I have started running again (slow and short) and canoeing (coach beginners, keep it easy). I’ve made major progress, although trying to do what I did before, as I attempted on Saturday, leaves me asleep in the afternoon. With patience I will get back to my usual activities soon.

As a sign of recovery I am planning my races for the second half of the year. I don’t want to overdo it, but three races keep popping into my head: The JW Ultra (thirty miles), Beachy Head and Leicester marathons. I’m going to hang on until the last minute before entering any of them so that I’m not committed until I know what I can manage. Two entries should be in already, though. Two of my favourite events: Round Norfolk Relay and Thunder Run.

See, I’m taking things easy.

There is a reason I haven’t written these blogs for a while. Knowing that most of my readers are my friends I’m sure most of you are aware that I have been in hospital for the past week. It was a scheduled operation that I had to fight hard to get and that I have been waiting for for months. It wasn’t a life threatening condition in the conventional sense of the word but the outcome is, and was always going to be, life changing.

Over this last few months the operation and the recovery time that I now need have been like a line dawn across the course of my life. Knowing it was coming has made everything harder since I was given the date in September. Job hunting was the most obvious thing. With a week in hospital and a long convalescence would I be able to take a job and still go ahead? Would I have to postpone something I had worked towards for years? Would a new employer release me for the time it was going to take?

To make things harder I had a flurry of potential job opportunities come my way at the end of January. I made a decision that I would only tackle those issues if an offer came my way, but the question of how they might respond to a delay in starting date was always nagging away at the back of my head. I don’t know whether my concentration would have been tighter or my presentation better without, but I do know that couldn’t focus on much else in the last month.

The problem overflowed into the rest of my life too. Unable to plan for races in the first part of this year I have watched my friends book and train for marathons, build schemes to run in the mountains and grow and develop their running. I was left with vague plans to get my running back on track in the autumn and parkrun, where I targeted and achieved a small pb a couple of weeks ago. Canoeing has been on hold since I damaged my arm in the new year; I have been able to do gentle stuff, but even the easy white water that my club mates have been finding has been beyond what I could safely do.

At long last I can put all these questions and frustrations behind me. I can go home next week and prepare for the challenges to come with a clean, clear future. I have to say I’m looking forward to it. I have an outline finished for another novel, I have some new poetry and I will be working on a script project. So that’s my afternoons taken care of. Mornings will have to be spent job hunting as before, but with a new determination. When the healing time is over I should be able to return to paddling and running again and I am already planning a steady build up in both. All this optimism and determination has nothing to do with boosting confidence and will power, but everything to do with having cleared up the quality of my life.

Hope

So, it happened: I was eliminated from the running for the job I interviewed for last week. Sometimes you just know what’s coming but it doesn’t help you handle it any better. To add to the pressure it was the end of the month. Time to review my finances and that always brings a panicky feeling. I have had to make cuts back that I really didn’t want to make. I caught myself in a number of avoidance behaviours, but knew that I had to do something about it. So I forced myself back to the phone and burned talk time calling recruiters with some limited success. I’m not going to count on it though. I know I need to find other ways to bring myself to potential employer’s attention.

On Tuesday I took my regular trip to the Job Centre. It’s a place that has an immediate effect on my morale. However pleasant the staff are (and they really do try) it remains a black hole for hope. A very nice lady sympathetically took my information and wished me better luck for the fortnight ahead. Coming back home all I wanted to do was curl up in a ball and have someone tell me that everything will work out in the end. At time like this you are faced with a  choice – you can give in for a while and do the curling up thing, or you can fight it down and get on with something positive.

I took the latter course. It wasn’t easy, but tea often helps. I hadn’t been at it for more than half an hour when my mobile rang in a withheld number. I answered in my most professional manner and the voice on the other end of the line launched into a friendly tirade about my organisational skills. It took me a minute to place him. Nick was my director at the best job I ever had and we worked really well together. I wrote to him when I started this job hunt and had taken his lack of reply somewhat to heart.  After half an hour of chat I had my confidence restored. It seems his reply went astray and he was wondering why I hadn’t responded to him.

This was followed by another telephone interview. The interviewer was a little strange. He opened with a description of what he wanted in his ideal candidate and why his previous interviewees had been unsatisfactory, then he forbade me from telling him that I was who he needed. I was a little puzzled, to be honest. I decided that the only approach I could take would be to be open about what I have done and let him make up his own mind. As a sales person I did, obviously, slew it towards the things he was looking for, but the more we spoke the more I felt that whatever the job paid, I did not want to work for this man.

When the email came, the next day, to tell me that I hadn’t been selected for another interview I felt a strange mixture of disappointment and relief. Disappointment because it is always difficult to be rejected, but relief because I suspect that job might have become a living purgatory.

My confidence has also been boosted by seeking feedback from the earlier interview. It confirmed that I am going about my search in the right way. I also learned that I need to improve some areas of my presentation. Importantly he confirmed that my insight about what had gone wrong was broadly correct and that is important confirmation.

The most important thing is that these events have restored hope in me. If you ever doubt it the importance of hope then think back to any time when you might have lost it. The effort it takes to keep trying at anything is multiplied infinitesimally by the loss of hope that you might achieve it. Many people stop trying when hope goes. In October I ran the Beachy Head Marathon. At fifteen miles my legs felt heavy from the hills and my feet were sore from running on flint tracks. At twenty miles we came out onto the coast. The terrain began to rise and fall like Atlantic Rollers preparing to crash onto the beach. The running became harder, but the joy of the place gave me wings and I found myself running faster with a stupid grin on my face. I caught and passed a running companion from earlier in the race. The last six miles almost flew by. This last week has reminded me of this experience. Your endurance helps you to keep going when things become difficult, hope lightens your step and brings back the joy of the journey.

Running

On Saturday morning I lined up at my local parkrun and, at 09:00, started a 5km time trial. There were about 150 of us on Newbold Comyn, but we set off together with thousands of runners at parkruns all over the country. I had friends running with me not only at home, but in Cambridge, Coventry, Manchester and Birmingham. Some of you read this. I ran hard and it hurt. When my time came through on Saturday afternoon I found I had broken under the 25 minute barrier again. This may not seem fast to some runners or important to non runners, but for me, after three months of limited running it was good to know that I am back. My best on this course is 24:12 and I will be chasing it over the next month.

It is important to be back. Running is one of the things that has kept me alive. It is time in the open when I can clear my head. There are no distractions. Only the miles and the interplay of rhythm between my feet and breathing. I have come to know the countryside around my town in so many of its moods and weathers. I know the short cuts and the long cuts, the mud baths and the places to avoid. It is my refuge. As I settle into an even stride I outpace my worries and stresses. The sharp feeling in my back that tells me I am doing everything wrong eases way and lets me think properly. I can plan, develop ideas and anything seems possible.

On Sunday I took off for a longer run. Ten miles, mostly off road. The route takes me through woods and fields, across the Avon twice, and circles a beautiful golf course. I’m usually a morning runner, but I had a busy day and before I knew it there was only enough time to squeeze the run in before coaching a pool session for the canoe club. It brought me a new mood: I have seen the Golf course empty before. I have run round it at dawn when the birds are waking and the grass sparkles with dew or frost. I have run around it and passed pleasantries with passing golfers. On an overcast, cold, January Sunday evening it was quite deserted and it had a sleepy, almost grumpy feel, as if it was warning me off.

Somewhere out there, though, the world came right again. I located the cause of my unease after the interview on Wednesday and put it into perspective. I realised that I was running well and comfortably and automatically took a long cut somewhere around the back. I had the energy to make a calculation on the time the long cut would add to my run and reluctantly turned back. I bounced home with barely enough time to get back out for canoeing. And that is why I run. For the endorphin high that you get when you get back in, for the clarity of thought that comes when the toxins of a sedentary life burn away. For the sight of over 100 ravens turning the trees on the edge of a wood black. To be in touch with the world around me. To know myself, properly.

I have been worrying that I have no races booked for this year – I will shortly have to have another eight weeks off running and daren’t book anything in. I have plans for the end of the year, if money will allow, but nothing this spring. Yesterdays run reminded me that I don’t need races. I am going away for a birthday weekend next month. My friend found a race in the town while we are there. I would have been excited a couple of days ago. Now I find myself worrying that if I enter the race I won’t be able to explore the coast running as I had planned. I think the coast will win.

The importance of running isn’t limited to the time spent on my feet. When I run I focus better. I am more optimistic and achieve much more in any given time. I feel better in myself and I believe that others see that in me. In the time I wasn’t running I became more self obsessed. My friends clearly noticed but they didn’t criticise me. More than one has expressed her pleasure that I am back, though. The other me, the shadow living in my body was more morose, less outgoing. I’m worried about how I will cope with an enforced eight weeks off soon, but right now, baby, I’m back.

The Power of Words

Words have power. It’s nothing new. Chaucer certainly knew it, penning unflattering portraits of the Pardoner, Summoner and Cook in his Canterbury Tales (and those are just the ones I remember well, I have a vaguer recollection that underneath his description of the wealthy Wife of Bath he created a strong impression of a right old slapper). Writers play with words all the time, as do comedians and journalists. Placed properly the right word can bring down the house or break someone’s career.

If you doubt the dangers of the poorly thought out word or word placement then a quick glance at the photo below which popped up on Facebook while I was writing this should help you.

Photo by KP Marek

Ricky Gervais has been in trouble recently for using the word “Mong” in a tweet. It’s not so much the use of the word that bothered me, we all make mistakes, it was his reaction to the criticism. He could have argued etymology (I’d assumed the word was abbreviated from mongrel) or simply withdrawn, but instead he argued that it wasn’t really offensive. Surely the only people who can tell us whether the use of a word is offensive is the group of people to whom it refers.

Another case in point is “Trannie”. Rupaul recently claimed the word as inoffensive and this has triggered a massive debate in the LGBT community. Transgendered people generally reject the word because of its associations – it conjures up an immediate image of men wearing ill fitting and inappropriate women’s clothing in drag clubs. A friend recently referred to her shoes as “Trannie Shoes” because they had higher heels than she was used to. My younger son used words like “Gay” and “Leftie” pejoratively while he was at school. This is despite being left handed himself. It is careless usage ingrained by our peers, but learned at a time when we might not be expected to know better. Keeping using them as adults is less defensible.

Gervais should know what he is doing with words, he is a comedian, someone who makes his living from the words he uses. We should expect better of him. Tim Minchin sets an example that more established comedians could learn from with his treatment of another word used to persecute a minority.

Tina Weymouth, of Talking Heads and the Tom Tom Club, said “Words have a defining, crippling way of restricting what you think is possible.” How often have we heard people say that they cannot do something because they are fat, slow or stupid. We do have choice in the words that we apply to ourselves. It is important never to give that away and let other people’s words define us.

Sales people have another problem in that they frequently have to think under pressure and respond with words that aren’t always well chosen. When training sales people I have spent a good deal of time working on the impressions that words make, taking time to understand how the customer might interpret them. I don’t like to mislead people, but simple switches of emphasis can make a huge difference to how you are understood.

Serendipity keeps turning stuff up today: as I wrote this the door to my flat buzzed and a young man who identified himself as belonging to an electricity company demanded access. I’m sure he didn’t mean to, but the difference between “Please will you let me in” and “Will you let me in, please” is striking and immediately lost him my co-operation. It didn’t help that after I let him he found he was in the wrong building and had to be ejected. So the impression has been created that this company employ rude young men who do a poor job.

As I came out of an interview yesterday, I found myself worrying about the words I’d used. The problem was that, under pressure, I couldn’t remember how I had phrased some important points. If I was successful the phone will ring soon to invite to another stage of the recruitment process and I will stop worrying. If it doesn’t I will be back to square one in the job hunt, but worse than that I will be waking up at night to worry about my words.

I’ll leave the last word with Tina Weymouth and the Tom Tom Club.

Ready for Change?

You probably heard the news last week, that Kodak filed for protection from creditors. When an iconic brand goes into administration the press treat it like a movie star’s divorce. It doesn’t seem to matter how inevitable the change was, somehow the earth shifts. I was wondering whether we sometimes make too much of it. Change is inevitable in life. I have probably banged on about it a few times. I worked for Kodak’s largest distributor ten years ago. The writing was definitely on the wall.

Sometimes change comes along in a cataclysmic form: redundancy, divorce, the death of someone you love. There isn’t anything you can do change it or plan for it. Sometimes it’s good: you meet someone special or start a new job. Change often comes to you in stages: babies take nine months to grow. Of course they are a special case, no matter what you plan the first baby always seems to bring more change than new parents are prepared for (or was I alone in that?). But we can see them coming, even if we haven’t always planned them from the start.

So why do we spend so much time trying to avoid or ignore change. When I asked my company about their plans for the future one director told me the Kodak would tell us. So I asked Kodak. They told me that film would be good for a decade to come, that capture quality on digital cameras wouldn’t come close to matching it for at least that long. I could see numbers that suggested otherwise.

It’s human nature to avoid things that trouble us. I’m not sure why. Some people call it the ostrich effect. I do it myself, sometimes. The trouble is that the change still occurs. It will happen all around you and leave you struggling along in its wake, trying to catch up. So you need to plan and adapt.

I remember sitting in my kayak at the top of gorge somewhere in south west Scotland, or it might have been northern England. The gorge was a grade harder than I comfortably paddled. We’d been out of our boats and had a good look at it and Jim, our leader, mentor and frequent rescuer, had pointed out the route. It went something like this (You’ll have to imagine his Carlisle accent for yourselves): “Paddle in left of the rock, break out here, spin round and ferry glide to right, shoot that one in the middle then go river left, mind that hole and then PLF (paddle really hard). You’ll be fine.” So off we went.

Of course it didn’t quite go like that. Somewhere I went left instead of right, or maybe I found the hole. I definitely PLFed. There was some trauma and a massive adrenaline high. But down I came, not quite to plan, definitely damp and somewhat short of breath. Going through a change process is a bit like paddling that rapid. I’ve been planning for it, I’m prepared. But like the run down the rapid it is quite likely that things won’t go as planned. A metaphorical wave could well push me off course but, unlike Kodak, I’m fully engaged with the task.

Fear

In the pub, the other night, the Canoe Club were talking about fear. A couple of paddlers made unplanned visits to a nasty looking wave on last weekend’s trip which prompted some discussion on what the most dangerous features are on a river, how you recognise them and how you get out of them should you accidentally stray. We had a few horror stories, but one of our newer, keener members kept coming back to more and more extreme worst case scenarios. When the answers to his “What can I do then?” questions consistently became “Stop breathing” we decided to probe his reasons a bit more deeply. Apparently he almost never feels fear, so he wanted constant possibilities and last chance options so that he would have something to think about and try when the rest of our minds would have shut down in pure panic.

We pushed him a little on the subject and he told us that he likes to fully understand a situation so that he knows when he should be feeling fear. Apparently when he knows how difficult and dangerous something is he gets to feel a little afraid and he seeks out those opportunities. I suspect he may outgrow our club.

Lots of things make us feel fear. There seem to be times when we are more prey to it than others. I have climbed in my time. Living in the Cumbria I used to meet an old friend and visited some classic climbs after work. I have sat with my feet over precipices and felt nothing more than love of view. Now I come over all funny when there are heights on the TV. I’ve even had a funny turn when a character in a video game stood on a tall building. Driving over the Thames bridge at Dartford is a white knuckle ride. I plan to stay away from heights for a while. Other fears, when I faced them, became nothing more than shadows in my past.

In the near future I am due to have an operation. It is something I have needed to have done for a long time, something I have looked forward to and which will greatly improve my quality of life. The trouble is that I have never had an operation before. I’ve never been under anaesthetic and never under a knife. The nearest I have been to this was stitches after a couple of bouts of youthful stupidity. And now I’m getting nervous. It’s the right kind of fear, a fear that challenges me and asks whether I’m doing the right thing. I know the answer, of course, but it is starting bubble under everything I do.

I have this policy. If I think that fear is the reason I don’t want to do something, I take a deep breath and step out to do it. Occasionally I have to remind myself of this. Recently it has brought only good things. New friends, fun times and opportunities. Another thing I’d wish I’d known when I was twenty, if I hadn’t already decided that I have no real regrets about my life.