Up and Away

Sometimes the road gets tough, yet sometimes I experience a glimpse of humanity and I’m lifted up. Sunday I ran the Maine Half Marathon for the fifth consecutive year. With nearly four thousand runners, the race is one of the most popular in the state.

Start of Maine Marathon-Half Marathon Portland, Maine 2013

 I remember my first one quite clearly and while it was only four years ago, it seems worlds away. My colleagues had challenged each other to train over the summer and run the race in early October.  I was looking for the feeling of being part of something and started training in June.  While I had been a runner in high school, that was twenty-five years earlier, plus I had other priorities and diversions that I used as excuses to keep me from running for years.

In New York, Living

Like so many other participants who attended last week’s training for transgender organizers, I arrived in New York City on Tuesday evening.  The first part of my trip ended at The Port Authority in midtown Manhattan after a 5^1/2- hour bus ride from Portsmouth, New Hampshire.  After successfully navigating the three flights of escalators I emerged into the perpetual light of 7^th Avenue.  With my carry-on bag and over packed suitcase filled with way too many shoes, I started walking south to my waiting hotel and the other conference participants 20 blocks away. In New York people don’t get out of the way and they rarely smile.  I felt like an Atlantic salmon swimming upstream encountering damn after damn along the way.  After five or so blocks, my feet started to hurt and my back ached from sitting for so long, with a little guilt I hailed-down a cab to carry me to my destination, a Holliday Inn on 26^th street in Chelsea.