Anne McClane

Finishing the TCS New York City Marathon

It’s been awhile since I’ve written here. Not since I’ve been here. I visit my WordPress dashboard nearly every day. With five years’ worth of weekly posts, there’s some content that folks seem to find their way to. It’s kinda interesting. A post from 2018, Annie…Are You Okay? seems to get a lot of hits. Haven’t really figured out why.

There were some good things to write about in 2022, but I just couldn’t get myself to write them. I started a post about the James Webb Space Telescope in March 2022, but never finished it. For the first quarter of last year, I anxiously followed its journey, first settling in a million miles away from earth, then unfolding all its delicate instruments. That’s another website I visit almost daily, awestruck at the images and observations from the farthest reaches of our universe.

And I read Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five last year. Also awestruck at that. Loved it. Goes up as one of my favorite books of all time. But still not enough to dislodge the massive case of writer’s block I’ve been struggling with the past few years.

But then, this post is not about my writer’s block, or about all the great things I should have written about. It’s about the great experience I had running the TCS New York City Marathon in November 2022.

To set the stage: this was not my first marathon. I ran Los Angeles in 2000, New Orleans in 2005, and Houston in 2010. The highlights of Houston: it was my PR, I ran it in 4:29:29. And I saw former president George H.W. Bush in a secluded location somewhere around mile 18. He was by himself, sorta, (I’m positive Secret Service folks were close behind him) cheering on the runners. Wearing a long black coat, fitting for a former head of the CIA, he was not more than ten feet away. I think I shouted something lame like “Thank you, Mr. President!” Interesting, because his was the first presidential election I voted in. I didn’t vote for him, but I had always liked him.

So, anyway, having run a few marathons before, New York had been on my bucket list for a while. The prospect of running through all five boroughs was just something that sounded so enticing. I guess that sounds kind of wacky, but I think it’s a kind of marathon logic. When you’ve covered 26.2 miles on foot a few times, you see a lot of different parts of a city, and they’re not all memorable. Not every part of NYC was memorable, either, but one of the things that made this race so special to me is that I can make that memorable claim, specific to the city. “I’ve run through all five boroughs of New York City.” More than three months later, it still thrills me to say this. I hope it always will.

There were a lot of things that made this race special, and such an awesome experience. Since my first presidential election was 1988, you can figure I’m no spring chicken anymore. I went into training for this race not knowing how my limbs and ligaments would handle all the miles. I told myself it would be my last marathon, creaky knees and tight hips just needed to get me to the finish line so many miles away just one last time.

However, a funny thing happened. I listened to the advice of physical therapists, and consistently did the exercises they gave me. I did the strength training exercises, targeted for runners, provided by the NY Road Runners Team for Kids. Team for Kids is another big reason this was such a phenomenal experience, but more on them in a bit. The funny thing? I finished the race, in pretty good shape. I wasn’t hobbled at the end, nothing gave out on me.

The actual experience of race day was spectacular, too. The day was unseasonably warm for New York in November, and my wave started at 10:55 am. The temperature was no big deal for me—having trained in all the heat and humidity of a New Orleans summer, I was pretty well conditioned for it. The time of day was likely my biggest obstacle. Because having trained in all the heat and humidity of a New Orleans summer, I was conditioned as an early morning runner. Even on my longest training runs, I was finished before 11:00 am.

I finished the race roughly 20 minutes slower than I was hoping for. (I was hoping to finish in under five and a half hours.) But I have absolutely no regrets about that! While I blame the time of day (and a bit of the heat) for making me slower, I think the timing might have been key to what ultimately made the race my best marathon experience: the crowds. The people who filled the streets of Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Manhattan were phenomenal. (The only crowds in Staten Island were the other runners at the start of the race, but they were pretty great, too.) I just don’t think the spectators would have been as enthusiastic, or numerous, if I had encountered them at 7:00 am. 🙂

And Team for Kids. I could not have had this experience without them, literally. I raised over $3,000 for Team for Kids and got to run the marathon. This was my first time raising that amount of money for an organization, and I don’t think I could have picked a better one. For the last 20 years, they’ve offered free health and fitness programs to children in schools across the country. By teaching goal-setting, perseverance, determination, and teamwork, these youth running programs get kids on track toward a healthy and successful life. I’ve been the beneficiary of all the fringe benefits of running (mental, emotional, physical) for a long time now. I was very happy to be part of an effort to open the door to those benefits for anyone who’s willing to try it out.

So, finally. Maybe the best part of this whole experience is that I want to do another marathon now. While my knees are still creaky and my hips are still tight, that finisher feeling is just too appealing. Lookout, Paris.

Sunrise over Brooklyn — Sunrise on the day of the race. Waiting for the ferry to the start line.

Friendly crowds at the NYC Marathon. — One of the thousands of thumbs-up I received as I ran the race.

February 15, 2023 by Anne McClane

A Far, Far Better Thing

Sydney Carton and The Seamstress by Sol Eytinge

This is the third year I’ve concluded with Dickens. When I wound up 2019 with Great Expectations (I realize how ironic that sounds now), and liked it so much, I made an intention of exploring more Dickens in the fourth quarter of the year.

Last year was David Copperfield, which I enjoyed, but it felt a bit self-congratulatory on Dickens’s part. Certainly more so than Great Expectations.

This year was A Tale of Two Cities. This book is the only Dickens I had read prior to 2019, although that “prior” was close to forty years ago. I remember liking it when I read it in high school, and I remember really liking a TV movie version we got to watch in class. In that rendition, Chris Sarandon played both Sydney Carton and Charles Darnay. I loved him, especially his portrayal of Sydney Carton. When The Princess Bride premiered just a couple of years after I saw that version of A Tale of Two Cities, I was a touch disappointed to see him play such a heel of a character as Prince Humperdinck.

Flash forward to now, when I’ve seen The Princess Bride more times than I can count. I found that old TV movie A Tale of Two Cities streaming somewhere, and watched it last month. I can no longer unsee Chris Sarandon as Prince Humperdinck, especially since his voice sounds exactly the same in his portrayal of all three characters. Although his Sydney Carton certainly has more of a drawl. Another fun fact lost on me back in the mid-80s — Peter Cushing (Grand Moff Tarkin from Star Wars) played Dr. Manette.

But I’m burying the lede. What has bubbled up to me through the sedimentary layers of decades is how much I love the character of Sydney Carton. He’s the reason I liked the book so much the first time I read it, and the TV movie the first time I saw it. He’s the poster child for “damaged goods.” And he knows it, and has no illusions about it. He never tries to redeem himself through multiple, abortive, attempts at self-improvement. Actually, his commitment to keep his damage self-contained, and not inflict his misery upon others, is one of the most heroic things about him. (Is his self-containment why Dickens chose the name Carton?)

No, Sydney Carton’s foregoing any small-scale redemptive attempts during his lifetime, sets up his final act in a huge way. He makes the ultimate sacrifice, but it’s not to win a battle, or save a city, or save the universe (sorry, Iron Man). It’s to save a family — and it’s not even his family. But it’s the family of the woman he loves.

And I can’t think of a character who has a better concluding line / thought than Sydney Carton’s. So I begin this new year, grateful to have explored and rediscovered a love I have held for most of my life. Here’s to far, far better things for all of us.

December 31, 2021 by Anne McClane

The Ida Odyssey

Found at Inlet Beach, Florida, September 7, 2021

Hurricane Ida slammed into coastal Louisiana on August 29, about six weeks ago. I’ve had this post drafted for nearly the past month, but haven’t brought myself to finish it. There are a few reasons for this, I think. Like any great procrastinator, I’ve been able to find plenty of other things to do rather than write this. And every time I’d sit down to write, I found that the post-experience had changed. We were very fortunate, and did not sustain any major damage to our home, so “back-to-normal” came sooner for us. For friends whose homes and businesses were devastated, I just feel kind of insensitive writing about what happened to me in particular, when it was not particularly devastating.

So I’ve decided to keep the tale of this odyssey to just the first two weeks after the storm, when pretty much everyone who lives in Southeastern Louisiana had a shared experience of power outages, lines for gas, and the decision of whether or not to evacuate.

I will also include two items of note that are not shared experiences, but are particular to me. 1) August 29 is my birthday. And 2) Ida was my mom’s name.

Starting with those two weeks, from August 29 to September 11. We did not evacuate, and lost power in our house in the early afternoon of August 29. The storm blew in, and it was a wild one. We heard a crash outside, and looked to find a pine tree blown down, about two houses down from us. The worst part came in the evening, when my phone told me there was a flash flood warning. The levee failures during Katrina inundated our neighborhood (we did not live here at the time), and all I could do was pray that all the improvements that have happened since that time really did improve the situation.

They apparently did, because we woke up the next morning to wet, debris-strewn streets, but not flooded streets. The next decision became “should we stay or should we go?” We had a vacation in Florida, planned for months, set to begin Sunday, September 5. But we were looking at a long six days until then with no power, no services, and no place to go, since both of our workplaces were experiencing similar issues at a different scale. That made the decision easy. We couldn’t get into our vacation rental any earlier than the 5th, so we booked a hotel nearby our rental and left on Thursday, September 2.

One more detail to add. I waited for seven hours to get gas on Wednesday, September 1. All I care to say about that is that it was a lesson in patience and fortitude, and I hope to beat that time by a significant amount when I run the New York Marathon in 2022.

Our Florida vacation was really nice, definitely one of our nicer beach vacations. But it did have a bit of an Odyssey feel to it, like when Odysseus lives the high life with Circe while having no idea what is going on back at home.

I’ll conclude with those two items of note, mentioned previously. About August 29 being my birthday…I’ve written in this space before about what a bummer it can be. This quote from a post in 2017 about sums it up: “When your birthday falls at the height of the hurricane season, you get used to altering plans.”

And about Ida being my mom’s name. She died in 2014, at the age of 81. Her positive, beneficent, influence was really strong in our family, and still lives on. Thus, when a Hurricane Ida took aim at the places where a good number of her children and grandchildren live, the name of the storm was more than a detail. Ida is not a common name in our time. I’m still scratching my head over how a name I associate with such a gentle human being caused such mass devastation as a storm. Storms and people are very different things, obviously, but I guess they both have the potential for major impact. I’ll take the impact of having had Ida the person as a mom any day (and twice on Sunday).

October 11, 2021 by Anne McClane

The Iliad: 100%

Sunrise over the New Orleans Museum of Art Sculpture Garden, June 29, 2021. The sculpture *could* be inspired by *The Iliad*, but I don’t think it is.

I recently finished The Iliad, and all I can think to say is: thank God for the movie Troy. Being able to picture Brad Pitt, Eric Bana, Brian Cox, and Sean Bean in my mind’s eye as I slogged through the text about Achilles, Hector, Agamemnon, and Odysseus was tremendously helpful. Although, on the few bits with Hector’s wife Andromache, I thought less about Saffron Burrows and more about Charlize Theron, because her character in The Old Guard is named Andromache.

When I write “the few bits with Hector’s wife,” I mean it. The Iliad is very male-centric. Even though they were apparently fighting the Trojan War over a woman (Helen), she does not factor into the story very much. What does factor into the story? LOTS of fighting. And some Olympic-type sports. And the Greek gods behaving like Grade A A*holes. I read a version translated by Alexander Pope, where Zeus, or Jupiter, was referred to as Jove. And Jove gets mentioned everywhere, by jove.

The description of the fighting was pretty evocative, and might be the only thing I really enjoyed about this read. Catch this: “He fell heavily to the ground, and the spear stuck in his heart, which still beat, and made the butt-end of the spear quiver till dread Mars put an end to his life.” What a picture! (Although this time Mars gets the attribution, not Jupiter.)

Spoiler alerts ahead: there are two bits of ancient history that I kept expecting to encounter in The Iliad, but they never came up. The first was the death of Achilles. His death in Troy is foretold throughout the story, but the story ends with Hector’s burial, and Achilles apparently very much alive. According to an article by Philip Chrysopoulos in Greek Reporter: “The death of Achilles is not mentioned at all in The Iliad. His killing by Paris, who had discovered the one weak spot of the Greek warrior, comes from another ancient legend, which says that Paris shot Achilles in the heel with an arrow and killed him.”

The second was the Trojan Horse. It is referenced in The Odyssey (which I’m currently reading), but not in The Iliad. And unless it comes up again in more detail, all the reader finds out is that it was Odysseus who kept everyone quiet when they were hiding in the wooden horse. Given all the visceral action sequences in The Iliad, I would have liked to read a depiction of what happened when they came charging out of the horse.

But while these two Greek classics are not proving to be favorites, I definitely feel I’m benefiting from the experience. Getting a first-hand sense of these stories, foundational to so much of western thought, seems to be having a clarifying effect on me. That’s it for now!

July 6, 2021 by Anne McClane

Mrs. Dalloway: 100%

“…having done with the triumphs of youth, lost herself in the process of living, to find it, with a shock of delight, as the sun rose, as the day sank.”
— from Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway is my most engaging read yet this year. Out of the eighteen serials I’ve read on the Serial Reader app, it might be my favorite. Great Expectations comes close, but can’t match the synchronicity I experienced. I never recognized as much of myself in Pip as I did in Clarissa Dalloway. The fact that I’m the same age as Mrs. Dalloway in the novel certainly helped foster this feeling.

That can seem pretty loaded, to say that I identify with a privileged, middle-aged, woman living in excessive comfort in early 20th century London. But that’s not what I mean by stating “I see myself in Clarissa Dalloway.” And I’m pretty positive Virginia Woolf’s intention was not to glorify Mrs. Dalloway’s privilege.

To me, the whole point is that there is so much more to everything, and everyone, than the categories we put them in.

I had a similar experience many years ago when I read Jane Austen’s Persuasion. I remember strongly identifying with the protagonist, Anne Elliot. Not only did we share a name, we were the same age. Not yet 30 years old, I was at a point in my life where I wasn’t excited about my future prospects. Something needed to change — I needed to change — to course-correct my life. What I took from Persuasion was that if things could change for a 27-year-old woman in the Regency period, there was no reason why I couldn’t shake things up for myself at the fin de 20th siecle.

Clarissa Dalloway is at a different stage of her life, (as am I). Now it’s not so much about changing your life, as it is making sense of it. And what Virginia Woolf accomplished so masterfully in the novel is capturing the multi-facetedness of life, of perception, of everything. Reading Mrs. Dalloway was like being hit with, and comprehending, a brilliant stream from the multiverse. Not only do we understand how Clarissa Dalloway perceives things, we understand how she is perceived, chiefly through the characters of Richard Dalloway, Peter Walsh, and Sally Seton.

And what can I say about the other anchor for the story, the Great War veteran Septimus Warren Smith? Suffering from PTSD and rapidly losing his grip on reality, reading his scenes was difficult, to put it mildly. Clarissa Dalloway does not know him, but knows his doctor, Sir William Bradshaw. When she learns of Smith’s death from Bradshaw, she is profoundly affected, and the story comes back around to itself in the most amazing way. It was one of the most convincing depictions of humanity’s interconnectivity I’ve encountered.

I didn’t go into Mrs. Dalloway with high hopes. I read Woolf’s Night and Day first, and didn’t care much for it. There was only one character I really liked, Mary Datchet, and she kinda gets the narrative shaft. Night and Day was published six years before Mrs. Dalloway, so I guess it just goes to show how writers can develop. Something else I can hope to identify with.

To conclude: my recent interest in Virginia Woolf relates to her novel Orlando. I read it in college, and remember being very intrigued with how time is treated in the story. I plan to re-read it this year, and Night and Day and Mrs. Dalloway were a sort of grounding in Woolf. Tying it back to time, the striking clocks were another thing I loved about Mrs. Dalloway. So I’ll leave you with this, right after Clarissa learns about Septimus Warren Smith:

The clock was striking. The leaden circles dissolved in the air. He made her feel the beauty; made her feel the fun. But she must go back. She must assemble. She must find Sally and Peter. And she came in from the little room.

June 5, 2021 by Anne McClane

The Irregulars

My television streaming was not all it could have been over the past year. I had some technical difficulties with my Smart TV, which I’ve only just recently corrected with the purchase of an Amazon Fire Stick.

So, while not quite making up for lost time, my TV intake has been somewhat strategic. Admittedly, the timing of the Fire Stick acquisition likely had to do with the release of Godzilla vs. Kong. I couldn’t abide the thought of viewing this long-awaited monster movie through a choppy stream. I’m happy to report zero technical difficulties with the streaming. Narrative wise, I was disappointed that the story was weighted toward Team Kong, and that I did not hear one good Godzilla roar. But it was entertaining, and — spoiler alert — the intro of MechaGodzilla was fun and worked for the story.

But, as the title of this post is not Godzilla vs. Kong, rather, The Irregulars, let me get to it. Searching for something else to watch, The Irregulars caught my fancy. It’s a take on Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars, set in the 19th century but infused with 21st century sensibilities. It features four kids of the street and one posh outsider, who are hired by John Watson to investigate some paranormal happenings.

In The Irregulars, Holmes is an addict, and Watson is, at best, unreliable, and at worst, villainous. Ultimately, it was the chemistry of the five Irregulars that really made this show stand out to me. You get the compelling backstory on all of them, except for Spike, played charmingly by McKell David. There was nothing mysterious about him, you just get the sense that he aligned himself with sisters Bea (Thaddea Graham) and Jessie (Darci Shaw), and their friend Billy (Jojo Macari), after the three of them left the work house they had been in since childhood. In a later episode, Spike refers to himself as the skeleton of the group — the one who holds them all together. I loved this.

The posh outsider turns out to be Prince Leopold (Harrison Osterfield), the youngest son of Queen Victoria. I loved this storyline, too.

The first episode ended with the introduction of what I thought was a tired old trope, which was puzzling in a story with so many fresh elements. Fortunately, I wasn’t disappointed enough to stop watching. The trope wound up turning on its head, and I think this successfully redeemed the originality of The Irregulars.

If I am to believe the Internet, there will be a second season of The Irregulars. I’m looking forward to seeing what the showrunners come up with next.

May 1, 2021 by Anne McClane

Quarter Report 2021

I live my life a quarter mile at a time. — Dom Toretto

This is not the first time I’ve referenced this favorite quote in this space. Vin Diesel’s line is a running theme throughout the Fast & Furious franchise, and, to me, is a tremendously apt way to describe living in the moment.

My specific reference is not miles, but years. Having cut my teeth in the business world in the discipline of accounting, I’m prone to think of years in quarters. And as I find myself at the end of Q1 2021, it felt like a good time to post a quarter report. So here, in no particular order, are some particulars:

While I have not been idle, I have still not prepared the manuscript of my 3rd novel for public consumption. But I have set a fast (and furious) goal of having it prepared by end of Q2. Q2 2021, just to be clear.
I completed a “game-ified” course in the Python programming language through an app called Mimo. That’s all I have to say about that.
I discovered the writer Jess Lourey. I have not read her — I watched a webinar on editing she offered through Sisters in Crime, and was thoroughly impressed. I plan to take more of her online courses, after I finish my editing work (see bullet point #1).
I finished Don Quixote. I found myself thinking of the musical theme to Monty Python and the Holy Grail through most of it. And realized how much Terry Gilliam must have been influenced by Don Quixote. In fact, I discovered there’s a 2018 film, written and directed by Terry Gilliam, called The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. With Jonathan Pryce as Don Quixote, and one of my favorites, Stellan Skarsgard, as a character called “The Boss.” And Adam Driver as Toby, and my guess from his billing is that he is the eponymous “man who killed Don Quixote.”

Anyway, to wrap this up: I’ve added The Man Who Killed Don Quixote to my ever growing “to be watched” list. But, I close the book on Don Quixote thinking how little, and how much, has changed for writers in the past 400 years. And I believe it’s a net positive for writers in the current era.

How little has changed: there’s a scene near the end, in Chapter 62, where Don Quixote enters a book printer’s shop in Barcelona. Don Quixote asks an author he encounters whether he is printing at his own risk, or if he’s sold the copyright to a bookseller. The author answers that he would not give up his copyright so readily, and that he is printing at his own risk: “I do not print my books to win fame in the world, for I am known in it already by my works; I want to make money, without which reputation is not worth a rap.”

How much has changed: to me, the risk an author hazards in the digital era is significantly less than 400 years ago, or even 25 years ago. With an exponentially increased potential readership over 400 years ago, and a reduced out-of-pocket cost compared to 25 years ago, it seems to me that a writer has very little to lose by putting her works out there.

Or here.

March 31, 2021March 31, 2021 by Anne McClane

Don Quixote: 65%

I read John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces last year. It was an effort that took about 15 years. I’d tried to complete it at least twice before, at the urging of folks who claim it’s a masterful comedy that captures the spirit of New Orleans like no other book.

While I feel like “masterful” is an apt descriptor, I’m less inclined to agree with the comedy part. Every time I tried to read it, I found it really, really depressing. It’s evident to me how much of himself Toole poured into the book, and I believe it was ultimately his undoing. And while it definitely captures a flavor of New Orleans that only a native could express so truthfully; it’s a bitterer flavor, and a meaner spirit than I hope to capture in my fiction.

Anyway, I steeled myself and managed to finish it. And it spurred an interest in reading Miguel Cervantes’ Don Quixote. How so, you may ask? Because, I’d seen more than one reviewer describe Dunces’ main character, Ignatius Reilly, as a 20th-century Don Quixote. So I marked Don Quixote as a “Read Later” on my Serial Reader app, with the intention of starting it as 2021 began.

And, so far, so good. I’m enjoying Don Quixote much more than A Confederacy of Dunces. And I definitely am NOT getting the sense that Don Quixote was Cervantes’ undoing. Here are a few observations thus far:

Two stories / ten years. Don Quixote consists of two parts, published roughly ten years apart. It’s my understanding that the the first part of the story was an unprecedented success for Cervantes, and led to his writing further adventures for his protagonist. (Fascinating bit of 17th-century intrigue: an impostor apparently published a “fake” story featuring Don Quixote before Cervantes released the second part.) But as far as Cervantes’ original, I notice a difference between the two parts, which I really dig. The humor of the first part seems to be more at Don Quixote’s expense; while he comes across as a stronger and more aware character in the second part. I feel more empathy for him, and like him better in the second part.
Life for a noble in 17th century Spain. The experience of reading Don Quixote has been very immersive for me. The world of the novel feels evident and tangible, more so than most of the classics I’ve read over the last several years, with the exception of War and Peace. But while Tolstoy’s classic dropped me off in Russia in the early 1800s, Don Quixote sends me back another 200 years! And even given the further time displacement, the climate of Spain and all the Catholic stuff feel very familiar to me, more so than the world of War and Peace. Plus, the fact that Cervantes philosophizes a whole lot less than Tolstoy has made it a more entertaining read.
Knights-errant / superheroes. One last thought: while most of the knights-errant of the chivalric romances — the objects of Don Quixote’s obsession — are unfamiliar to me, it’s been very easy to imagine them as superheroes. Heck, they even call Batman the Dark Knight. Just another thing that makes the world of Don Quixote seem a lot closer than 400 years ago.

February 25, 2021 by Anne McClane

The Amazing Swan

Sunrise over the Sculpture Garden on January 7, 2021

Winter is not my favorite season. Snow is rare in New Orleans, and winters here tend to be dank and gray. Cold, too, just not consistently cold. The later sunrises don’t suit my preferred morning routine, either.

If you’re picturing me as a curmudgeonly Bernie Sanders meme right now, fair enough.

I guess it’s just my way of setting up that I’m pretty excited about the approach of spring. And it seems there are more reasons than the return of bluer skies and greener land to be hopeful this year. Yes, the earth is still in the mighty throes of a pandemic, but pandemics don’t last forever, and we might finally be able to say we are in the waning days (months).

Some interesting bird sightings recently also have me thinking of spring. Appropriately: robins, robins, everywhere. But also a particular pelican and singular swan. The pelican, pictured below, was airing out its wings on a bridge in City Park’s sculpture garden. (Actually, the sculpture garden belonging to the New Orleans Museum of Art, which is located in City Park.) Not so unusual, except that it was stationary so long it seemed almost like a fixture.

The swan requires a bit more explanation. There is a mirrored maze in the sculpture garden, that was designed to be walked through. The interior of the maze has been closed due to the pandemic, but you can still walk around it.

The same Saturday I saw the pelican, I spotted a large, white mass at the center of the maze. Because of the way the mirrors are positioned, it’s impossible to get a clear line of sight. But I could clearly make out white feathers, and what appeared to be a neck tucked into a wing, like it was sleeping. A couple of days later, I passed the mirror maze again to look for my fowl friend. Sure enough, there was a swan there, no longer nested at the center, but looking like it was ready to emerge from the labyrinth.

Taken from the exterior of the sculpture garden, January 25, 2021. Look just past the “Interior Closed” sign.

I can only speak for myself, but something about emerging from the maze feels terribly symbolic. 🙂

January 29, 2021 by Anne McClane

2020: Dream is Collapsing

Sunrise over Bayou St. John, December 27, 2020

Fear not! This post is not as dire as the title might have you believe. In truth, it’s the name of the song I listened to the most in 2020, if I am to believe Spotify. It’s an instrumental piece, full of drama and portent, by Hans Zimmer. Many memorable action sequences from the movie Inception are set to this piece of music.

And to prove that I was not all about ominous, reality-busting mythos this past year, my second-most-listened-to song of 2020 was “Wishing Well” by Terence Trent D’Arby.

But I have to admit, if I was to create a piece of fiction based on this past year, I’d be afraid to reference “Dream is Collapsing,” because it’s just a little too perfect.

When I think of my own particular ambitions for this past year, pre-pandemic, I can’t really say they collapsed — it’s more like they deflated. And I’m mindful of how fortunate I am in that scenario, so what follows aren’t complaints, just examples. Specifically about writing and running, two solitary activities that, in theory, could still go on with little interruption in our current environment.

Regarding writing, the best excuse I can give is that a combination of uncertainty, anxiety, and doubt kept me from settling into the necessary re-writes on my third novel. We’re talking another level of procrastination. And regarding running, I didn’t run the New York Marathon in November, because there wasn’t one to run.

I see a bright side to this deflation, though. I feel like I can see a little more clearly without all the puffiness of my aspirations getting in the way. No, I didn’t write as much as I “should” have, but I did read a bunch. Most notably: for sheer volume, War and Peace and David Copperfield; and, for giving me stuff to think about, Bhagavad Gita and Frederick Douglass’s Why is the Negro Lynched?

Running-wise, if I had run the marathon, I most likely would not have run the Trail-Zilla half-marathon trail run with nieces Nicole and Cece a few weeks ago. And I would have missed out on a really challenging, but fun, shared experience.

So I don’t regret my flat tires. Just hoping to get enough air in them to get me back out on the road before too long.

December 30, 2020 by Anne McClane