Running for Your Life: On Beshert

M’s mother Ro doesn’t bring much Yiddish into my life. But a long time ago she said that when a Canadian drives an unairconditioned car from the north into a heat wave in the US South and meets the girl of his dreams, the only non-southerner at a Richmond, Virginia, writers’ conference, it’s Beshert: Meant to be.

Ro never wavers in that belief, in that support of me. And I can only hope that I have, perhaps even in ways that she never at first imagined, carried that as a promise, never a burden. I know that now I think of her, finally a little feeble in her 98 years, that she has bestowed many gifts on me in my life, but perhaps none as generous and meaningful as that one. As that folk-pure belief in me.

The night (April 18) I was to have been recuperating from the Boston Marathon has me thinking of Ro. Earlier M and I and three young friends are celebrating the first night of Passover with one of our friends’ family members in Long Island. The evening is grandfatherly replete with respectful readings and a post-toddler decorated Haggadah, a service advertised as a thirty-minute Seder that passes an hour and M and I and J, an exchange student from England, the true visitors of the evening, don’t flag in our interest, our pleasure; there are many toasts, heartfelt and warm, and as visitors we feel none of the complicated emotions that come with family, all is exceptional on its surface, genteel and polite, the code observed so much so that there are the inevitable cross-table meaningful glances, in which I plead not guilty because on this night, the first night of Passover, the visitor is royalty, in this case of a formal type, which is why it is right and appropriate that M asks J, whose company at the Seder we find more than amenable, to join us at our home in Brooklyn for a nightcap, which he does and then the night is Beshert, the Ro moment, J and M and I (And this only strikes me now, that K is in a relationship with a good man, also J – J, K, L and M, any further names to come on the letter line and I muse, Isaac or Ian, or say Nina or Noreen .¤.¤. Nimrod? Not!) talking, laughing, sipping whisky, shards of ice cooling our glasses, books and authors, the value or friendship among writers, French movies and mentors, turning us on to memories of Haruki Murakami, our beloved novelist friend with the jazz touch, J quoting the final line of “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle:” In a place far away from anyone or anywhere, I drifted off for a moment, How so few books yield payoffs as this does for being, at times not so blissfully, inside the story, because here is reading for a love of reading. And it was Ro who taught me what was Beshert. Which was what this was, a marathon talk about writing, reading and the importance of being earnest (If only this bit were funny, I could earn that .¤.¤.) One that lasted probably as long as it would have taken me to finish the race earlier that day. A second reason to not ever forget this night. Or Ro’s phrase: Beshert.

I don’t have a coach, but I’ve a friend at Total Game Plan who is a good one at http://bit.ly/hRtDDq. Like Dan Bylsma, my current hero in sports. Pittsburgh Penguins’ head coach, who if you can believe half of what you see in a public persona, really does believe that it is best to consider the long term, the next fifteen seasons, God willing, of being able to watch if not coach a young athlete by the name of Sidney Crosby, the best all-around professional hockey player in the world, who since early January has not been on the players’ bench in a game situation, a nod from Bylsma and Sid’s over the boards, changing the course of the fastest, most exciting game on earth, but Sid’s concussed and Bylsma’s not going to take a chance on forcing the issue and perhaps endanger the health of a player for the glory of now, his team of lesser players taking the source of that wisdom and respect to heart and playing the games of their lives, now (midday April 26) miraculously still among twelve teams in the Race for the Cup, playing heroically against a more talented team, the Tampa Bay Lightning, contrast that to the story of Pedro Feliciano, http://bit.ly/gNvwRl, out indefinitely, where’s the compassionate coach in that? (From the Times’ Ben Shpigel piece, “Two weeks ago [Yankee GM Brian] Cashman said the Mets had “abused” Feliciano by pitching him so often. On Thursday [April 14], Cashman took umbrage with criticism he condoned bullpen overuse by the Yankee’s previous manager, Joe Torre, who, after identifying a reliable reliever would pitch him frequently),” which gets me to Coach Tully and Total Game Plan. Where in things sports and training – and personal winning – I turn to because now, thirty-seven days after my last run, I’m beyond antsy to get back at it, to start running again but rather than doing that I’m taking to heart Mike’s wise writings, and the example of Sid Crosby and Dan Byslma, and this week I’m saying little prayers for the Penguins who face a seventh and deciding game against the Lightning (April 27) and Pedro Feliciano, whose shoulder rehab I hope is successful, and frankly I hope that when he returns he rejects the Cashman doctrine (“Can he come back and be ‘Pedro Feliciano? I couldn’t tell you yet.”) and embraces the Bylsma one. Come back, Pedro. But take your time. Don’t be rushed, as I’m trying to learn. Return on your own terms.

Next: Running for Your Life: Setting Goals