We have two official writing prompts each day on this walking writers retreat -- the word given at the beginning of each day and the prompt or exercise proffered during our 1-2-hour session in the evenings. During our session in Balmaha, the evening prompt was "Phoenix." There was much murmuring and humming as we all considered the great birds of ourselves rising above the challenge of this wet, wild, windy walk. Or not rising, as the case might be.
Brilliant birds rose from this chase the Phoenix, some delicate, some humorous, some musical, some just plain odd (but true). A few writings from this session:
Phoenix
This is renewal, new life springing.
The fears and doubts and horrors of the night
Vanishing in the new morning air.
The coals of regret white now with ash.
The variegated greens, the iridescence in the mist,
Are the last wisp from the pyre.
This is renewal, that brief moment of wild color,
Before the evening, knowing it will end. Quick! Don’t miss it:
That passion for only now,
The still beating heart, the longing,
Knowing how soon it will end.
Because that bird will return again,
But it is not the same bird.
That rook’s wood box call.
That clattering quail,
That ptarmigan’s startled trajectory
The hustle of that haycock.
This is renewal
This thrusting joyous flight,
But never the same blaze,
Never the same bird.
Mary Murfin-Bayley, West Highland Way, 2019
That Other Phoenix
Phoenix. A beautiful word. An opportunity to reflect on how we rise up from the ashes of challenge. And yet with this invitation, all I can think of is how much I hate Phoenix, Arizona.
How I continue to hold a grudge 25 years later.
Who in their right mind runs a Marathon in Phoenix, Arizona? And why? Why would anyone run a marathon through Phoenix, Arizona?
I’ll tell you why. Because they, like me, probably thought it would be a flat run and that a flat run would be easier than, say a mountainous run, or a cold, wet, and hilly run like the post-Thanksgiving Day Seattle Marathon.
Easier. Ha. Only a crazy person.
I should’ve figured it out from the start time of 5 AM. Which meant we need to up on the oddly cold hill where the race began and which race administrators seemed to believe was a mountain. I am a Washingtonian. It was a pimple.
There I was alongside 3,000 other idiots stamping and breathing into our hands and giddily waiting for the start gun to go off. Despite my annoyed, non-caffeinated face, Jim, the IT guy from my office, was chatting incessantly in my ear the entire time. He was excited. I should’ve gotten back on the courtesy bus.
Instead, I joined the pack and launched down the hill and into the desert, part of the chuff, chuff, chuffing masse. Jim did not stop talking. His seemingly singular and lendless run-on sentence suffocating me at every foot drop.
"Ohmanicannotbelievewearedoingthisihopeimakeitandidon'tthrowuporhavetousethebathroomdidtheysayhowmanytoiletswouldbeontheroadwhatdoyouthinkofthenewstrategicplancomingoutotheleadershipgroupidon'tthinktheylikemebutiamthebestthingthathaseverhappenedtotheagencydidyoubringrunnersguiforot. . ."
As he rambledon the cool "mountain" breeze quickly gave way to a blazing hot sun that would eventually turn to reach 104° as we pounded out across the desert, a 26-mile stream of Adidas and Saucony and New Balance and Nike and one pair of bare feet.
Miles and miles and miles. The heat. The talking. The urge to stop, grab Jim's sweaty jersey at the neckline, and scream "SHUT THE FUCK UP!"
All but four of the 26 1/2 miles ran through the desert. Don't get me wrong, the dessert can be beautiful. Likely this portion of the dessert is gorgeous if you aren't running across it. If you are, it's miles and miles of flat sameness. The road became blurry through my sweat, all asphalt blankness; so flat it soon grew into an agony, so hot you could warm up pot of coffee on it. Which I wish I had done instead of relying on the sickly sweet and snot-thick Runners Gu I packed thinking it would keep me going.
It did not.
Instead, it made me hangry and made Jim bloody unbearable. And, so, although we had trained to run in the 14-minute-mile pacing group, by the time we reached the 8 mil marker I turned up the speed and push into the 12-minute pace group without so much as a Ciao! to Jim. Leaving the old windbag to to slug it out alone.
As I did this I felt no remorse, no guilt. Only the absolute knowledge that a) if I did not move up I would kill myself b) I would never ever run with this man, or quite possibly any man, again and c) In fact, I hated Jim.
By a mile or two later I felt more sane, more reasonable. I might run with a man again. If he was mute. Or a monk.
There were no race watchers, no fog horns or waving placards saying "Go MOM!" or "You are a GODDESS Cheryl!" in the Arizona desert. Who could blame them? it was bad enough running through this hellish landscape. Could you imagine standing there?
I realized the only way out of this pain was through it. Forward. Fast, before Jim could catch up with me. And I could see him pack in the pack trying his damnedest to reach the 13 minuters. Jim did not real people's cues.
The race became a blur as I cursed the road, the state of Arizona, my friend Andrea who suggested this race, my own idiocy. I I cursed the manufacturers of the sunscreen – the Supersport 75 – that wasn’t working as the sun burned a permanent mark on my left cheek.
I cried, I vomited, I got a cramp, I thought I might have a heart attack, but I did not stop.
And then, the race masochists threw in a hill! How they managed to get one in on what seemed at this point to be a vast red barren landscape is beyond me. But there it was at the 24 mile mark, a slow and stead incline into Tucson.
Anger took over. Anger propelled me. As I crossed the finish line, I flipped off the jumping clapping race volunteer who tried to hand me my finisher metal.
I apologized. She was just doing her job. She handed me a banana.
I did not wait for Jim. I got on the courtesy bus as fast as I could crawl over to it.
So what does this have to do with Scotland?
Every long distance has its challenges. But time, and clearly this prompt, Phoenix, has taught me that the most important is to rise above. I didn’t need to leave for Jim in the dust. I simply needed to rise above his chatter. I didn't need to course the entire state of Arizona. I just needed to remember it was my choice to run through it. And that there would be, as there always it, an end.
Here on this road, I don’t need to stuff my fears that this is an idiot of a thesis project idea or that I’m not a very good workshop leader. I simply need to rise above that fear, keep on moving forward, and open myself to the perspective of that birds-eye view.
Cheryl Murfin, West Highland Way, 2019
A Ballad
to be sung with the Strumstick in D
Modest the ptarmigan
grouse and the quail,
homely the wren in the heather
A tale altogether
of firey intent is
the Phoenix of Scotland’s near sorrow
How Malcolm the merry
found pride with a lass
and she in her bonnie joy springing
And haem to the loch
came to tend the fine farm
of green fields and sheep for to wander
The fires of war
came across the soft lands
and bitter the rend in their clans
And pipes put to blaw
called the poor to the front
for to fight and to die for rich kings
The tale is all ash
and the country awash
in the ancient enmities kindled
So to ask of the farm
when the ainneamhag come
to rebuild or far shores to find
Beware O ye lovlies!
Avaunt and away!
be brave once again now in peace
And guard well yon ash,
holly, elm and the beech,
the home hearths and altars attend
Hail! O hail the beauty of firth
of loch and the warmth of the dram,
the bravest of deed
in this age of despair
is to love like the Scott loves their home.
Sharon Murfin, West Highland Way, 2019
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