The thought of running a 5k activates my gag reflex. A half-marathon doesn’t even register on my list of things possible, much less a full marathon. My friend J is running a full marathon today AFTER swimming 2.4 miles and biking 112. The fact that a human can complete an Ironman baffles me. Apart from the physical aspect, imagine what a psyche goes through during those 12 hours…

J, I am in awe of you, sister.

And I’m tracking you!!! You’re done with the swim and on your bike…*shakes pom poms*

Our stockpile of airline miles plus Mom being in-between jobs equals Mom being able to fly across the country for a spur-of-the-moment trip.

I’ve always felt very far from my family here in LA, but it doesn’t seem so now.

While flying home from Miami last week I read an article in the NEW YORKER about what football does to the brain. Neuroscientists are logging evidence that retired football players have a significantly higher rate of developing “behavioral and personality changes, followed by disinhibition and irritability, before moving on to dementia.” All long before old-age.

Here are some quotes from the article:

‘I remember, every season, multiple occasions where I’d hit someone so hard that my eyes went cross-eyed, and they wouldn’t come uncrossed for a full series of plays.’ —Terry Long, retired Pittsburgh Steeler

Referring to data from sensors placed inside a UNC defensive lineman’s helmet, collected during preseason morning and evening practices one day: ‘9:55 A.M. He has an 80-g hit to the front of his head. About ten minutes later, he has a 98-g acceleration to the front of his head. To put those numbers in perspective, if you drove your car into a wall at twenty-five miles per hour and you weren’t wearing your seat belt, the force of your head hitting the windshield would be around 100gs: in effect, the player had two car accidents that morning. In the evening session, he experiences [a] 64-g hit to the same spot.’ —Kevin Guskiewicz, head of UNC’s Sports Concussion Research Program. Later in the evening session, this player received a 63-g hit. Including those four blows, this player was hit in the head thirty-one times that day and sustained a concussion. 

Data collected by the abovementioned sensors placed in various players helmets ‘suggests that, in an average football season, a lineman could get struck in the head a thousand times, which means that a ten-year NFL veteran, when you bring in his college and high-school playing days, could well have been hit in the head eighteen thousand times: that’s thousands of jarring blows that shake the brain from front to back and side to side, stretching and weakening and tearing the connections among nerve cells.’ —Robert Cantu, concussion specialist.

LAX. Dropping off my husband; picking up my mama!

in our two short rows of bungalows are old-school neighbors. They linger to talk, keep up with each other’s professional and personal doings, come together when an older neighbor is in the hospital and needs this or that.

When I moved here nearly three years ago I felt awkward with the intimacy of it all, simply because I never had neighbors like this in Miami and eight years of anonymity becomes a habit.  

Sandy was the neighbor who broke me in. She stopped to talk every single time I saw her, and over months I grew to appreciate our snippets of time together. She dragged heavy wedding presents to her place after every UPS delivery during our honeymoon. She took Trix back home when our unsecured French Doors blew open one day while we were at work and Trix ran out into the street. She brought me homemade spring rolls. One afternoon several months ago, we sat hip to hip on the narrow step on my front porch and she told me she had cancer. We talked about her cancer, her fight, and her fears whenever she brought it up, which in the past few months was often.

Yesterday morning another neighbor, Steve, told me that Sandy is dying. I immediately cried and then wondered aloud about Steve’s well being, as he and Sandy have been neighbors for something like eighteen years and theirs is a deep brand of friendship. Steve said that he’s struggling with the news, but that Sandy is one of the few people he knows who is spiritually ready to go. He said that knowing this helps mitigate his grief.

I’ve been thinking about this for two days. Obviously it’s different for everyone, but what does it mean to be spiritually ready to go? I imagine it’s a blend of reconciling regrets, tying loose ends, feeling exhausted by illness and willing to let go, believing that there’s peace on the other side. 

I think part of it must also be the result of doing something Sandy has done well:

Being a good neighbor.

Belated birthday dinner for my sisinlaw: red snapper with lemon/butter/caper sauce, roasted broccoli with fresh grated parmesan, baby caprese salad, raspberry/vanilla cupcakes with chocolate buttercream frosting.

YUM!

On another food note, my latest obsession is BRUSSEL SPROUTS. I wrote that in all caps because my entire life I’ve “hated” them. I wrote that with quotation marks because I don’t think I ate them once. I concluded that I hated them based on reputation alone. Well, I’ve been halving them and sauteing them in olive oil cut side down, then sprinkling them with salt, pepper and fresh grated parmesan. The sprouts get soft while the bottoms get brown and crispy and, well, I’m obsessed.

I didn’t have time to see every friend I would have liked to see, but my time with the ones I did recharged a battery for me.   

Earlier today I walked by the Coconut Grove Playhouse, where I saw dozens of plays when I lived in Miami. It’s a beautiful, historic theatre-closed now due to the artistic director misappropriating funds that were needed for repairs, without which the building was unable to remain open to the public. Sad…there are so few places to see a play in this sprawling city.

My view right now. Sunny, warm, breezy Miami afternoon.