Martin Dugard's Blog, page 10

I need to think.

Dawn Friday. Ocean Beach. I force myself out of bed and log stiff morning miles. Sports park with too many holes in the turf, straight along the bike path above the estuary. Salt air blowing in from the dog beach. White herons standing up to their knees in low tide. Tomorrow is my oldest son's wedding and I have a toast to write. At 6:30 sharp, San Diego International announces its daily opening as a long twin-engine banks toward the sunrise. Every minute, on the minute, another plane roars overhead. I time my run by the departures. The words won't come.

"Do you know what you're going to say?"

That's what I've been hearing all week. Father of the groom. Speaking off the cuff is not OK. I preach without notes in front of large groups all the time. Book signings, book clubs, college classrooms, team practices. I just riff. But words have to be precise when your oldest son is tying the knot.

So I procrastinate. I've been a writer long enough to know words will come in their time. So even, after months of dodging style choices, I purchase a new blue suit at Nordstrom, the words won't talk to me.

"Is tomorrow ok for the alterations?" asks Debbie, a superhero in the men's department.

"How about one hour?" I respond.

Last minute. Time to leave for San Diego. I never wear suits. They're not me. I show up at Nordstrom wearing a baggy t-shirt bearing a logo from a Portland brewery, even baggier running shorts, and crisp pre-wedding haircut at odds with my lack of style.

Debbie makes it happen.

Saturday afternoon. Time to put on that tailored suit and drive to the ceremony. Still, no speech. Tick tock. Calene and I walk into the venue as the event planner sets up. Navy losing to Army on the TV, not a good omen for a wedding soon to be full of Navy pilots. Elvis singing "take my hand, take my whole life too" as she grabs my wrist and we slow dance in the empty hall. Our wedding song. Her eyes sparkle. Something clicks. One hour to go.

"I need a few minutes," I tell my bride. "Come with me?"

"I'm good." Callie knows me. Knows I'll find the words but only if I'm alone. I leave the venue, setting off down the streets of Little Italy in search of a place to think.

Dressed in blue suit, carnation in my lapel, and leather shoes, I walk a block. If you ever charge down a busy city street wearing a bright blue suit and a boutonniere, be prepared for looks. I find Bottlecraft, order a Pliny, and write a speech at the bar as Army-Navy plays on the big TV. Words pour out in a flood of emotion. Too many. Needs an edit. Tick tock. I indulge my deepest emotion at Bottlecraft so I will keep it straight when I speak to parents, friends, fellow guests, and to Devin and Anne. A funny story, a transition to something heartfelt, close with the toast. Ninety seconds. Seventy-five is better.

"Get back here," my son texts. "I need you."

What parent doesn't answer that call? I slam my beer and return in time for pictures. Barely.

The speech still isn't right.

Ceremony (beautiful). Soft music playing. Time to talk. Best Man first. Calene and I go last. We get up there like Steve and Edie, she in her long slinky dress and me in my suit which I am beginning to like very much. Callie speaks from the heart, a loving mother telling truth, words like gold — so much so I stop listening to keep from choking up. Then I say what I came to say, penciling the final edit in my mind even as I speak.

No one's going to remember it. That's the way of wedding speeches. The best toast I ever heard was by my own best man, the sainted Groover Bentley.

But I say what I have to say to my son and his bride in words I will never consider easy or casual, but as heartfelt and honest as I know how. Because if they don't matter to me and Calene they don't matter at all.

People laugh a little in the right places. I slip in Springsteen for the final line, just to see who notices.

“Raise your glass," I tell the crowd. "Two hearts are better than one."

Then we all party very late into the night.

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If you know, you know.

Shane: "I could've been someone."

Christy: "Well, so could anyone."

Shane MacGowan of The Pogues died this week. His run of drugs and alcohol was legendary, even in rock and roll. He will be remembered for his great voice and lack of teeth. I was surprised to see so many social media posts from friends — all quiet Pogues fans. When a band has an album titled Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash, it's easy to think of them as an Irish punk band and nothing more. But their music was so tight and complex that even a non-musician like myself could tell they were something different. Black 47, Flogging Molly, and the DK Murphy's are all great bands, but The Pogues were the gold standard.

"Fairytale of New York" is the closest The Pogues ever came to sounding Top 40. Sentimental, harsh, romantic. A strange chorus about the nonexistent "NYPD choir singing 'Galway Bay.'" The outro is a rolling melody like the finale of Springsteen's "Thunder Road," meant to sound like a movie's final credits. The story starts in the drunk tank, flashes back to a first meeting on a cold Christmas night on Broadway, continues to lyrics about how much the couple love one another, followed by the dissolution: "you scumbag, you maggot, you cheap lousy faggot, Merry Christmas my ass, I prayed God it's our last." Then those final words about shared dreams, a prayer. A fairytale is supposed to have a happy ending. Those lines give the listener hope this couple will find a way to stay together.

It is one of the most romantic songs you will ever hear. Funny story, Calene and I accidentally stumbled backstage on a Pogues sound check one afternoon during our honeymoon. Had only a vague awareness who they were at the time, but "Fairytale" was their brand new hit.

Recently, I heard about something called "Arrival Fallacy." It's the belief that once we reach some great life goal the good times will never end. Struggles will be over. But like my good friend Dan McClory said in a dinner toast last night, "These are the good old days." The here and now. Life doesn't get easy when a goal is realized. The process of struggle just starts all over again. You have to find happiness in the midst of struggle.

This week has been interesting. A litany of petty struggles. I got into a telephone argument with a hotel front desk clerk about a reservation I cancelled one month ago, but which the hotel insisted I still pay for in full. I may or may not have insulted this individual for a thousand dollar charge I do not owe. I may or may not have been put on his hotel's "no fly" list for verbally doubting his truthfulness and professionalism. I do not mourn not being unable to stay at his hotel, but I sure do get angry at myself for losing control.

On top of that, I'm experiencing post cross-country let down (Calene was right: it's been just one week and I'm already planning next season). I do not like the fit of the suit I'm wearing to my son's wedding next weekend. I also do not like that the suit is years out of style, because I never wear suits, meaning I will look like a Cold War Soviet diplomat rather than the cool rocking dude I prefer to think of myself. And let's not get into the anxiety that keeps me awake at 3 am each and every night, origins completely unknown.

The problems encountered by the couple in the song — among them gambling, heroin abuse, and infidelity — are far more intense than the financial feast or famine years we endured.

If you go back through my writing, I've referenced "Fairytale of New York" several times. I remember quite clearly one Bastille Day while covering the Tour de France, stepping out of the press center in the Alps, air smelling like warm July rain. I was listening to "Fairytale" as I stood alone, breathing in fresh mountain air after hours inside. I used to write 5,000 words a day at the Tour, stories long lost somewhere on the Internet. Some of my best stuff. Each year, I would work alone in France for 23 days while Calene remained home with the boys. She always believed I could make it as a writer. My unspoken promise was that I would hold up my end of the bargain so we could both see our dreams come true.

Christie: "You took my dreams from me, when I first found you."

Shane: "I kept'm with me, babe. I packed them with my own. Can't make it all alone. I built my dreams around you."

So, you see, "Fairytale of New York" and The Pogues have special meaning for me. The fact the couple found hope inspired me to feel the same, which is why the song has meant so much for so many years. If you believe, there is no arrival fallacy, just the peaks and valleys that make a marriage and a career. These are the good old days.

RIP Shane MacGowan. Thanks for the hope.

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"I'm so glad the season's over," I told Calene this morning over brunch. Tutto Fresco restaurant. Chili cheese omelet. Soft bread with oil and garlic. Ice water and a greyhound. "I really need the break."

She rolled her eyes. "Let's see what you say in a week."

Cross country ended yesterday. A season of surprise and excellence, with those gut punch lows and emotional highs every season brings. Like my fantasy football team, only I'm the actual coach and the runners are athletes I actually see every day for six months.

I used to drive to Fresno, site of the California State Cross Country Championships. Four hours at dawn. Six any time after nine. Eight to ten coming back over the Grapevine on the 5 on Thanksgiving weekend. That's back when I was head coach. Now I'm the offensive coordinator — an assistant who writes workouts but doesn't need to wrangle hotel rooms or worry about team dinners. So now I fly. It's actually only a couple hours shorter, but I come home less frazzled from the traffic. There are amenities in airports and places to plug in my laptop. I arrive refreshed.

Got up Friday morning in the dark, the house still smelling of turkey and stuffing. Made the dawn flight to Fresno, connecting through San Francisco. A four-hour layover is nothing when you have words to write and a manuscript to edit. Made it to Fresno by two, then on to Woodward Park to check in. If you have not been to Woodward, know that it is a sprawling public place as large as New York's Central Park built around one of the best cross country courses anywhere. Sycamores turned gold and red from autumn, Canadian Snow Geese in the lakes, a flat starting area followed by five kilometers of rolling dirt and grass.

My routine has been the same since my first State Meet in 2007: check in at the official's table while my runners jog the course, say hello to fellow coaches (a group of good friends which grows larger with every passing year), then head back to the hotel to await race day. I used to do the team dinner. Now I go alone to a place in Clovis called the House of Juju. There I have a bison burger with bleu cheese ("Juju Bleu"), then return to my hotel, lock myself in my room, watch college football until 8:30, then fall asleep, eager to wake up to race day. After training six days a week since the middle of June, along with twelve weeks of racing, State is it. The summation. All I want to do is see the sun rise and watch my runners do their best.

So I didn't sleep well. But I promised to keep it light this year, reminding myself to have fun. Hit Starbucks for a coffee and pain du chocolat on my way to the meet. The teams arrived. Everyone looked loose. No sign of nerves. All good.

Cut to the chase: my girls finished third, making the podium. A team that wasn't even ranked when the season began ("Don't sleep on the Lady Eagles," I told a good friend who does the rankings) surprised absolutely everyone. My boys finished just fourteen points off the podium, on a day when one of my tougher runners set a school record for the course. So we celebrated and wondered what might have been, but all in all it was a great day. I've won seven championships but have never had two teams finish so high at State on the same day.

Then came the flight home. I pored over stats, breaking down what went right and wrong. I didn't get the upgrade, so the flight back was spent cramped in a window seat designed for a toddler, breaking down numbers. I got home and told Calene about the day but stayed awake on the couch long after she dozed off, still looking at numbers, wondering why I felt unsettled. Then, when I went to bed and slept late, my dreams were about what needs to be done better.

It was only this morning that I realized it's all over. Over. Cross country season is done. Track starts in five weeks, a time during which I will attend an Italian feast, my oldest son will be married, I will run a trail race that promises to be gruesome in its demands, and I'll have nothing to do every afternoon. Oh, and there will be Christmas and New Years.

A cross country season is like writing a book, six months of intensity followed by a loss of equilibrium as the process comes to an end. I cried when my girls team got their medals on the podium yesterday, because I get misty for reasons of all kind. I come across as such a hardass sometimes that it surprises them when I get emotional. I felt the same with my boys team, who were such a brilliant group of runners. My top three were stunning in their excellence.

So it's appropriate that I wrapped up the Second Pass edit on Taking London this morning over coffee. I'm sending it back to New York, never to touch the words again. It's all over. I say farewell, to the season and my new book at once. It's a relief. I can feel my shoulders relax. Look forward to a few extra hours in my day.

But like Calene says, that will last a week. Just one. Then that slow build of hope and dreams begins all over again as I wonder what track season — and the next book — will look like.

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My wife likes to call me Mr. Magoo.

Calene claims I wander through life in a state of mild befuddlement, flirting with calamity without knowing. I blame it on the way I arrange my days, traveling from one obsession to another: predawn dreams about the presidency of Teddy Roosevelt, straight out of bed to sunrise practice with my runners, then an hour with my novel before putting playtime away and turning my focus to historical research and writing. Then a workout on the bucolic trails of O'Neill Park, where among the things I ponder is whether the local deer know me, because they no longer run away when I approach, simply standing to one side of the trail and watching me pass. Loud music in the car, anything from Springsteen to trying to memorize "Modern Major General." Afternoon practice with the runners, my mental focus completely on just the right amount of speed and aerobic work to finish the season strong. By the end of the day, it's time to juggle my fantasy football lineup, read a book on the back porch, and finally, shut it all down for the night.

Everything is conducted with enormous obsession. When I lock in, I lock in. So little things like changing lanes in heavy traffic may not get the complete focus they deserve. Thus, Mr. Magoo.

But when I think of that cartoon character I think of slight dementia. And as I endure the daily struggle to find my phone and car keys, it's only natural to wonder if there's something to that. It's one of those things I ponder but don't investigate. But right now, among the books I'm reading is Dr. Peter Attia's Outlive, an excellent text on all things health and aging. From what I've read so far, my mental health is just fine — but vigilance is super important to living a long life without significant decline.

I trust Attia's writing. I've listened to his podcast for years — though not on long road trips. The good doctor's monotone delivery and enormous amount of arcane medical knowledge almost put me to sleep at the wheel while driving to Mammoth last summer. Pair him with sleep guru Dr. Matthew Walker, whose voice is perfect for a directed meditation, and you have two geniuses capable of inducing deep slumber. But as I take the time to read Outlive (very slowly, because I find medical detail necessary but not exciting), I can honestly say this book is changing my life. It's confirming some things I suspected about exercise (aerobic and weight work are vital), health (losing a few pounds is a good idea for a number of reasons that have nothing to do with being vain), and the importance of something as foreign as mitochondria. Best of all, Outlive is not a self-help book. Just research, thoughtfully explained with a thesis toward avoiding decline. I've never recommended a book in this space but put this on your Christmas list.

Outlive also got me thinking about what getting old looks like. When I was eighteen and the world was a blank slate, half my mental energy was given over to figuring out what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be when I grew up. Now, when I think about how I want to spend the next forty years, my only thought is that I want to travel well. See parts of the world we've never seen. Indulge in fine hotels. Make love on a beach with no name.

One thing I know is that I'll never stop being Mr. Magoo, filling days with obsessions. Writing will always be a thing. I'll be that old coach who still shows up at meets before dawn, simply for the glory of watching sunrise on race day. The deer in O'Neill will introduce me to their babies and their baby's babies. Calene and I will visit Vietnam and India, places we've always wanted to see. I never thought to write about what growing old looks like, but I hope it's a lot like that.

Had a nice zoom with my editor this morning. Second Pass for Taking London is coming my way on Thursday, which is the last time I'll see the words before it gets sent to the printer, there to be bound and shipped to the four corners of the earth. I'll read it one more time, hoping there are no completely awful sentences. It's a year this week since I began writing it, but the research went on for a while before that. I'm not the sort of writer who takes years on a book project, so living with Taking London the past eighteen months feels like a very long spell.

The next book is Taking Midway, which I don't love yet. Right now, we're not even friends. It's still in the problem child phase. The story isn't talking to me, at least not in the way I want. That's probably three or four months away. I can't explain the process other than to say that early in a book the story is something to be afraid of — a "don't fuck this up" opponent. Then you get to know it, and it's less terrifying. Then comes a "what if" moment when the story talks to me, granting permission to tell the story in a new and unusual voice or structure. That's a fun time. The book starts appearing in my dreams, literally. Characters start talking for themselves. Sentences beg to be written a certain way. Taking London, for instance, started as a straight-up excuse to fly in a Spitfire. Then I had to build a story around it, with the Battle of Britain as a logical choice. But there are hundreds of books about that fight, all told in pretty much the same style: straight history, pilot memoir, etc. I was stuck for a long time, wondering how I could do it differently.

I've written a lot of books. It's always terrifying. I can honestly say I'm always sure I'm about to veer down a dark path and write an awful piece of tripe. The trick is not giving in to that voice. I just keep writing and rewriting and rewriting, sometimes throwing it all away to start fresh. Well, not all of it. I delete a lot but I can't imagine doing as John le Carré did with The Honourable Schoolboy, hurling the entire manuscript into a roaring fire, then began again.

I prefer the David Mamet approach, locking myself in my office even when I can't solve the word problem. Spend enough time writing shitty drafts and the story unveils itself. My stomach cramps from the certainty that I will never solve this book. My butt hurts from sitting too much. My office smells of stale coffee and dog farts, from Sadie the Lab sleeping at my feet. My wife pays me a visit and suggests I light a candle.

This is Book Writing 101. There's no muse. There's no magic. Make a mess on the page and clean it up.

But then you come to where I am now, chatting with my wonderful editor about the marketing campaign and waiting to read the book one last time before saying goodbye and sending it to the printer. This is when I love the process very much.

Now about that problem child….

And then there was one.

Sometime in late May or early June each year I write my cross country season plan. There is a site known as print-a-calendar.com which allows me to print out each month on individual pages — June, July, and so on. Cross country practice starts in mid-June and goes to the last weekend of November — longer if runners go on to the national races. I fill in each of the 161 days that will constitute the training. Some of it's simple scheduling, writing in all the races on their chosen dates.

Then it's the long run, which I like to do on Saturdays. Sundays are for rest (I write that in), or mileage as needed to get to that week's goal. I don't meet with the team on Sunday, so those are written in as OYO — on your own. I stole that from my friend Tim Butler, who probably stole it from someone else. But it's an easy thing to remember.

Then I add speed workouts and threshold workouts and hills — and there you have it. I throw away the training schedule for each month once it passes. So what begins as six pieces of calendar waiting to be unveiled becomes five, then four, on down to one. Which is where we stand now.

November. Nineteen days to the State Meet.

I've already revised it a few times, adding and subtracting this and that based on how the teams are doing. That single sheet of paper sits on my desk next to my laptop as I type. At practice, I write that day's workout on a white board so the team can study what's coming.

This morning I added something from the internet on the white board:

"The magic you are looking for is found in the work you're avoiding."

I don't know who coined that. It could be Taylor Swift, Albert Einstein, anyone. I think it speaks to fear. So I also propped up my Ted Lasso "Believe" sign as added inspiration.

Let me hit pause for a second.

You've all been very kind in reading these missives. This community we've built through this blog has allowed me to share a whole lot more of my personal life than I ever intended. My goal was to let you inside the head of a working writer. You got a whole lot more. So in that spirit, I'll let you know I bought the Believe sign as a talisman through this sudden cancer journey. That quote about magic and avoidance is equally fitting because I am so dearly in need of magic at this time when I am increasingly avoidant. There's some great task staring me in the face and I have no fucking clue what it is.

In the meantime, we all need a happy place — an escape, if you will. Mine is coaching cross country.

So I study my training plan again and again, as I have done every day since practice began June 13. I look over at that distraction to my right, analyzing each workout to make sure it's just what my runners need, reveling in the alchemy of turning pieces of paper into podium gold.

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Sitting in the cancer ward while Calene gets a PET scan. Not a bad place to write, all things considered — plush chairs, quiet, so-so WiFi. So far this morning I've checked and rechecked stats from Friday's cross country meet, cancelled a trip to London, read the LA Times, and checked my American Express balance. I didn't sleep well last night, doing the 3 am wake-up and not falling back to sleep. Sometimes when this happens and I struggle to find a comfortable sleeping position I remind myself that this is where "toss and turn" comes from.

I have no idea why I'm anxious.

There are four weeks left in cross country season. We've been training five months and the teams look good. Very good, actually. Time to stop looking at rankings and remind the kids that the process is the most important thing right now. November is when I have to remind myself to have fun coaching or I will tense up and pass those vibes along to the team. We could win a couple championships next month. Just need to stay healthy and work the process. A lot can go wrong next month but a lot can also go very right.

I find myself getting very angry about the LA Times. I've read it faithfully each morning for as long as I can remember. Same routine each day: Sports, Calendar (Entertainment and Funnies), County, then, after all that and my mind is sharp and processing, the front page. But the Times is now a shadow of itself. The Sports section, like that of the New York Times, is no more. I don't know why I still get the paper delivered every day. I can get all that online. Maybe I just like the routine of pouring a cup of coffee and unfolding a broadsheet to scan column to column. But I sure do miss reading the box scores. It makes me very angry about the Sports.

Apologies for the rant. I have no idea why I'm anxious.

So we get up before dawn for these appointments, gliding up the 5 to get in the parking garage in time for the 7:30 change of shift and sudden abundance of good parking spaces. I carry my laptop and newspaper, while Calene carries a bag with a warm coat and sometimes a blanket. It's all so routine now, this 90-pound backpack we've been wearing so long that we don't notice it anymore. I believe in prayer but sometimes it feels like it’s a wish. PET scans let us know whether things are progressing or regressing. I try to hope we don't get a gut punch when the results come back. Good news is always welcome.

I have no idea why I'm anxious.

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When you write your book, as I believe we all should do in this life, if only for our grandchildren, you will be tempted to read your Amazon reviews. It's inevitable. Writing is a needy act, as storytelling has been since the beginning of the craft. Way back when tribes sat around a campfire to share their vignettes in the most dramatic fashion possible, you told your story to get a laugh, a tear, a knowing glance. Nowadays, we call that an Amazon five-star review.

I'm guilty. Friday was one of those days when I just didn't feel like writing. This happens every once in a while. I honor the written word by sitting at my desk and pondering story lines and maybe doing a little research. Check cross country stats, airfares, and inevitably, Amazon reviews.

It's a fool's errand. The overwhelming percentage are kind but it's in my nature to ignore them. If there was an email address I would write all those nice people and say thank you but such a thing does not exist. So if you're reading this and you wrote a glowing review for Taking Paris and cannot wait for June and Taking London, please know I appreciate you and read your review twice to soak in all of your kind words. You are geniuses and deserve to have babies named in your honor.

It's the dumb reviews that make me want to track down alleged readers and have a personal dialogue about their idiocy. The worst are reviews awarded one star because the delivery guy threw it on the wrong part of the porch or the reviewer didn't like the packaging. Utterly out of my control.

The know-it-alls are not much better, considering themselves experts on a certain phase of history. They want to argue every point they disagree with and tell me about the one book they read — which, of course, is far better than mine. I guarantee you that unless these people hold a doctorate on the subject matter, there's nothing you can share that I have not read in the countless hours I spend researching each and every word in a book. It's even better when they go on my Facebook page and post an insult trying to bait me into a response. I have made that mistake before, thinking there could be a civil dialogue. But no. I liken them to people with a porn addiction, unable to help themselves as they troll and troll and troll in search of their dopamine hit.

Finally, there are the historical deniers, those getting their history from God knows which website or television network. There's currently a flock of these taking umbrage with a sentence in Taking Berlin about Russia interfering in the 2016 US presidential election — it not only happened, by the way, but Russia has vowed to do it again. Why American "patriots" are defending a sworn enemy to democracy is beyond my purview.

Write your book. Bask in the accomplishment. Tell truths you want to pass on down through generations because your great-grandchildren will love you more than you will ever know for sharing these family delights. But be gentle with yourself. If you must read your Amazon reviews, do so as a form of amusement, saying a quiet thank you for the ones who get what you're trying to do.

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"You'll never make it."

We were sitting on a taxiway at O'Hare. The guy next to me was a chatty hedge fund manager. Started talking the minute he sat down. In no time at all I had the ear buds in and pulled out my book.

But that was an hour ago in Traverse City. Now, knowing that my connecting flight home was boarding and I needed to hustle from the far end of the F terminal to the far end of the C terminal, I was in go mode: backpack on my lap, one foot in the aisle to get a running start, seatbelt already unbuckled. Knowing I needed to move quickly, those earbuds were back in their white plastic case.

"That's a really long way," he said again, content in the knowledge he lived in Chicago and had no flight to catch.

"I'll make it," I told him.

It had not been that kind of weekend. In fact, it was the opposite, a time of content and catching up with my old buddies from Northern Michigan University. We meet every two years in Marquette for what can only be described as reminiscing. We drive around Presque Isle, eat at Vango's, pay homage to the Third Base Bar, and generally talk about the old times while drinking perhaps too much beer.

I flew into Traverse City, picked up a car, and stopped in Petoskey to pick up my old friend Matt Laforet. It was cold, wet, and windy when we got to Marquette, which is as I like it. I can get all the sunshine and 90 degree days I need in California.

There were seven of us who made the trip. We've all done pretty well, which would have surprised our twenty-year-old selves, who knew nothing of the future and considered ourselves royal fuck-ups compared to the ambitioous pre-med types. There have been heart attacks, cancer, thicker middles, and a noted loss of hair. Half the guys are sober. It used to be that when we went to the bar we weren't back until it closed, and then we'd bring supplies back to the dorm to keep the party going until dawn. This time, I was back in my room by nine, reading a book on the balcony happily buffeted by the winds off of Lake Superior.

Of course, it wasn't all monastic living. We still managed to find a small bar called The Breakers to watch college football and shoot pool. At some point I realized I love these guys. We know each other like brothers and had more than our share of differences back in the day. We still laugh at the same forty-year-old jokes. Still bust each other's balls over our personal quirks and nuances. My habit of doing the Irish Exit to wander off and do my own thing was duly noted, but accepted as part of who I am. I like solitude. These guys know it. It's nice to be understood.

With the exception of an amusing tour group who piled off their bus wearing plaid in honor of "plaiderday" (I think that's what it's called), nothing was out of the normal this weekend. When we said our goodbyes at the Hampton Inn over coffee Sunday morning, there was talk of not doing the trips anymore, or maybe meeting in someplace easier to access. But we decided that we'd be ready for one another again in two years and that no place works for us but Marquette.

Matt and I drove over the Mackinac Bridge and I dropped him off. I literally parked in the Traverse CIty airport parking lot as the early flight I'd hoped to catch pulled back from the gate. That left me with five hours to kill and that tight connection in Chicago. I didn't mind a bit. It was nice to have down time in a strange place with nothing to do.

I made the flight in Chicago. Barely. They were just about to close the door.

"Are you Martin?" asked the gate agent.

"That's me."

"Here's your new boarding pass. You got the upgrade to first."

A fitting end to a perfect weekend.

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The universe is speaking.

Just had one of those Peloton workouts that wring sweat out of every pore, bringing forth the aromas of everything I've put in my body the last forty-eight hours. The kind of sweat that makes you glad you're alone because the funk is so embarrassing.

And I was singing.

More on that later.

It's been a prolific week. Lots of fine sentences and pretty words. A full immersion into history that makes it dangerous for me to drive a car for at least an hour after getting up from the desk because I'm emotionally living in a different place and time. I usually read fiction at the end of the day to cleanse the palate and recharge. But sometimes, when you're writing a lot of words, even reading a simple spy thriller can feel overwhelming. When I'm sick of reading it means I'm drinking out of a fire hose.

So it is that I came to Friday feeling both successful and deeply in need of inspiration. We had a big cross country race that morning and the teams ran well. That gave me a nice boost. Race day is hard on coaches because it's the only time we don't control the action. Success or failure is out of our hands. It's a vulnerable feeling but also gratifying when everyone shows the depth of their training and personal fortitude by giving their best. Friday was such a day. Got a little misty when I told the teams how proud I was of them. I'm an emotional guy. No one was surprised. Chalk it up to being a creative type.

That was the first voice from the universe, bringing me back from the depths of being overwhelmed. Then came Friday night and a trip to the theater to see Les Miserables. The first time Callie and saw this chestnut was thirty years ago and I know the soundtrack by heart. Surprisingly, the production felt fresh, thanks to some subtle creative changes. Eponine, played by Christine Heesun Hwang, took my breath away with "On My Own." I walked into the theater thinking Callie and I were having a nice date night and walked out thinking about that novel I've been talking about.

So, the race, the show... and then pizza. Of all things, pizza. Went to Ballpark to pick up dinner. The place was packed with Pop Warner and AYSO families so I sat outside to wait for our to-go order. A group of either nerds or youth pastors — I couldn't tell which — stood off to the side. Chatty. Excited. They weren't drinking beer and I saw no sign of pizza, which made me curious. I opened my book (yep, I felt the need to read again). Then those crazy geeks began singing. A capella. Beautifully, Wow. I smiled at the universe and knew for certain I was being spoon-fed random doses of inspiration.

Back to this morning's spin. Jenn Sherman taped a ride featuring Bruce Springsteen songs about a month ago. I've never gotten around to it. But this morning I wanted something new. You know, inspiration. It did not disappoint.

Sherman not only played the music while teaching the class, but also talked about her own experiences as a Springsteen fan — most of which I can relate to. I loved when she talked about how getting tickets to a show used to mean sitting in a parking lot all night, rain or shine, in a long line of fellow fans waiting for a wristband. I had more than a few of those nights. Slowly, thinking back on my own experiences, I was overcome by nostalgia. I thought of the many shows since my first back in 1980. Thought of proposing to Calene with a line borrowed from “The River.” Missed my mom. And when Sherman closed with “Badlands,” my anthem, I sang along and pumped my fist in the air. While riding a spin bike. Alone in the bedroom we're turning into an exercise room. While sweating like a pig. I'm not as labile as I sound. Promise.

Then I came downstairs and wrote this blog. Normally, I don't get around to this until late Sunday afternoon. It's just after 10 am now. I am awash in inspiration. Ready for the week to come. Best of all, that novel I've set aside is talking to me again, telling me it needs time in my writing day.

Thank you, universe.

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