Martin Dugard's Blog, page 15

Photo by Martin Dugard

I am twelve days into what I am euphemistically calling a "vacation." This is not a research trip or a short getaway, but a planned and prolonged two months of getting my mojo back. In the thirty-plus years of my writing career I've never taken downtime, always motivated by this debt or that mortgage payment. But I've been busy since the start of Covid, writing and researching three very intense books. Toward the end of the most recent piece, the eleventh book in the Killing series, I noticed that I was getting my punctuation wrong and missing simple misspellings. I was anxious and jumpy for no reason. So, inspired by the novelist Ann Patchett, who once wrote in a memoir that she had no problem taking several months off between books, I am taking this break. Patchett also mentioned that she had no fear of the downtime robbing her of the ability to write well once she returned. That was once an unspoken fear of mine. But this time I didn't have much choice. I just need a break.

My sons tell me I won't make it past the two-week mark.

Granted, this blog post could be proving them correct. I am, technically, writing. But I've starved the blog for so long that it's embarrassing. A few hundred words isn't the same as six hours doing the deep dive on the Occupation of Paris or the current state of ISIS.

But this brings up the point: what is a vacation?

I mean, precisely. Callie and I spent a week in the Maldives in June, pretty much waking up with the sun, lounging on the beach all day, then ending the night with a sunset gin and tonic. But that's different from what I'm attempting. My aim is to begin my day with prayer and solitude, sifting through whatever emotions come my way. Ideally, the day is spent coaching and working out, training for the Boston Marathon (76 days from now and counting). I have a new contract to write the second book in the Taking series (book one, Taking Paris, hits stores precisely forty-two days from now), but even though I enjoy the lazy reading of several books on the subject as preliminary research, I'm in no hurry to tape the long sheet of butcher paper to my office wall that marks the beginning of every book. This is where I Sharpie the chapter-by-chapter outline at eye level so that I can see where I'm headed. But as E.L. Doctorow once noted, writing a book is like driving a car at night — you can't see beyond your headlights but as long as you keep driving you'll get to where you're going.

That's a paraphrase. But the sentiment makes sense.

Back to the vacation. Lots of puttering going on now that I have free time. Yesterday, I spent the afternoon driving to Burbank, helping my son Connor move a new desk into his apartment. That's something I can't pull off when I'm in book mode. It was great to spend time with him. So the puttering is good.

More important, I think the down time is vital to finding perspective. It's been a long time since I took a step back and looked ten years down the road to see where I'd like to be. I surprised myself the other day, turning down an amazing head coaching opportunity at a highly-competitive program. It was the first time I realized that maybe coaching isn't what it once was for me. I still do it every day and love the moments, but it doesn't consume me. And I have no current interest in writing screenplays, something which surprises me. Too many meetings and too much collaboration. The voice gets lost.

Those are two things I've learned in the last twelve days. I think there's more coming. I haven't yet gotten to that quiet place which occurs during every true vacation, that sensation that the rest of the world doesn't matter for awhile and the still, small voice makes itself heard. I think this is where the dangerous thoughts make themselves known, suggesting a radical new personal challenge that brings the head, heart, and cojones into precise alignment. That voice spoke to me on a plane flying back from Hawaii a long time ago, telling me I needed to write my first book. It's the voice I heard in Lourdes, looking down at a solitary trout fighting the current in the Gave River, telling me that coaching distance runners was something I absolutely positively needed to do.

It's also the voice that told me to run Boston, even though it's been thirteen years since my last marathon. Right now it feels impossible, just like those other times I heard the voice. But I bash on, regardless. I'll get it done.

I guess if I'm really serious about vacation I'll stop compulsively checking my phone. Maybe leave one of those messages saying I'm out of pocket for the next thirty-five days and cannot be reached. I'll turn this laptop off and lose the charger. I'll forget that I own yellow legal pads on which I plan each and every day. And I'll misplace the pens with which I write those words.

I'm just thankful that I have this time. We should all have this time. I keep thinking there needs to be some special way to structure a break like this, but that's really the point — the process is not the goal. My personal scaffolding needs rebuilding. Maybe that still, small voice will not make itself heard. But I'm listening.

Every couple weeks, Boston Marathon champion Des Linden sends me my training plan for this year's marathon. She is a generous coach, quick to respond to texts and extremely encouraging. There are wrinkles in the training I did not foresee, but those secrets are hers and not for me to share. Suffice to say there's variety in the work.

I will say that I'm doing track workouts once a week. I've been coaching for sixteen years now, so I've held the stopwatch trackside hundreds of times. But these interval sessions are the first I've actually run in at least twenty years. I was nervous at first, not sure my lumbering gait was ready for the track after weeks of slow and solitary trail runs. But once I knocked down a couple 400's I could feel an economy to my form that had been missing. It felt good to run faster than on the trails. My self-consciousness faded away and I lapsed into that rhythm of all track workouts — a hard interval followed by a brief walk and then a recovery jog before doing it again. I stopped worrying about the other people on the track, lost in my own world of adding up the intervals one at a time until I had done as many as Coach Linden laid out in the workout plan.

Turns out that minor moment of confidence was providential. I got to the track early one day last week for a set of 10x600 with a 400 jog recovery. My goal was to be there by 6:30 a.m. and I felt rightfully proud that I got myself out of bed, fed the dogs, read the paper, had a cup of coffee, and still managed to arrive at the track right on time. The place was empty. The forecasted 100-degree temps were still a few hours away. I reveled in the solitude.

Then a guy in a pickup arrived, carrying a load of coolers and pop-up tents. I started my warm-up, knowing he was on a mission. Pretty soon those canopies were in place, along with a folding table. Clipboard. Sign-up sheets. It was now 6:40. Clearly, something big was about to happen. I continued my easy warm-up jog. Des had prescribed 1.5 miles and I was determined to do the whole thing before launching into my workout.

Then they arrived, in one and twos and then by the carload. I had timed my workout to coincide with a girls lacrosse summer camp. Normally, this is when I leave. The last thing I want to do is run a workout in front of a crowd. But I stuck around because I'd already committed. In the end, I got it done and felt better for it, taking firm possession of Lane One despite the young lax players and their parents who seemed determined to congregate on the track.

That was a good day. I finished sweaty and uplifted. I felt like a runner.

Two steps forward.

I returned to the track for today's workout. I worked hard yesterday, a hilly trail run of no great length but wearing a sweatshirt in ninety-degree weather (don't ask). Then I went to the gym for an hour. Last Friday I finished writing the third in a series of back-to-back-to-back books, and was eager to embrace a week of pure training. Perhaps I overdid my newfound spare time.

I didn't finish today's workout. Not even close. Barely got started. My body most emphatically told me that today was not going to be my day. And the shame was I had the track all to myself.

One step back.

This is how it's going to be, I think. There will be good days and there will be not so good. But I'm not writing off today as a disaster — I'm treating it as recovery. I lost touch with myself over the last three or four years. Buried myself in work and fear, very much afraid of the future until suddenly, one day a few months ago, I wasn't afraid anymore and wanted to embrace whatever's next in a very big way. I feel like I need to recover from those emotions of overwork and worry before I can fully embrace what's next.

Somehow, running Boston is a big piece of that puzzle. Maybe some sort of closure. Maybe a portal. Who knows. The reason will reveal itself in due time. I just know I need to do it.

But I know this: between starting line and finish lies the process: two steps forward and one step back.

Ryan Mcbride/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

I turn 60 in a few weeks. Fifty leveled me, making me realize that I was definitely near or past the halfway mark of this life. I spent that day in my office, a little stunned. Couldn't write. Went to get a haircut. The barber asked if I wanted a beer, which is always a great thing for any barber to suggest. So I had a Budweiser, because that's all he had, which only made me more sad, because drinking a warm Bud in a barber chair on your 50th is not the sort of celebrating that normally goes with a birthday. But it must have been significant because here we are, ten years later, and I still remember that can of beer.

Ten years ago, the first Killing book was finished but not yet published. My running book had been in stores three weeks and selling just ok. To Be a Runner was a labor of love, so I had hopes for huge sales, but in the end it was one of those books I had to write before I die — every author has a list like that. So, to put the words on page and see it in print would have to be enough.

Nobody had any idea the Killing books would take off. Killing Lincoln was a one-off, a fun book to write and research but in my wildest dreams I never imagined it would sell millions of copies and spawn ten more Killing books. That's right: ten. We're working on book eleven in the series right now. People ask if I mind my name on the cover being in a smaller font than my famous co-author’s. Not for a second. I get to write books for a living, which is enough. That, and the fact that the check cashes just the same, big font or little font.

The past ten years saw a lot of life changes, mostly because of the Killing books. The uncertain future I pondered that day in the barber chair turned into ten years of learning how to be a better writer. When I finally returned to solo work last year with Taking Paris (due in stores September 7), I took all those lessons about tightening a narrative that I learned working with Bill and wrote fearlessly. It's the best thing I've ever written on my own.

I'm more comfortable in my own skin as I turn 60. Sometimes I wonder where the angry young man went to, or how I have become so fond of being positive. I laugh a lot more, but I still call “Badlands” my anthem.

I also lost my mom a few years ago, the woman who was my biggest fan and most ardent critic. I'm a writer because she taught me that reading is one of the best ways to fill your time, but also because she and I fought some very bitter battles. Our issues were never completely resolved so I found my voice as a writer to put my rage, fears, hopes, and dreams on paper. I don't want to say I was lost when she passed, and I am glad I had the chance to speak my piece while she could still hear me, but I feel like I am only able to see the best in her now that she is gone. We were too much alike. All I could hear was her criticism. The small bony hands of her final days could pack a wallop or pull out a chunk of hair back in her prime, and even in those final moments when they could not hurt me I still feared them. Only now can I remember the many ways in which she told me she loved me — all spoken with the Boston accent of her youth, in a no-nonsense style that was fond in its own way.

I surprised myself recently by realizing that I am eager to take this wonderful life I have lived to a new level: more travel, pushing my limits as a writer, being a better coach (I have realized I'm in the coaching business for the long haul), laughing more, connecting with Calene in a deeper and more profound manner as we grow old together. It really is a wonderful life. It's funny how a long series of mistakes, false starts, and moments of quiet shame come together to blend with the love that we find each day to form this thing we call happiness.

I also realized I need a new challenge. I'm not coasting, but I want to do something that feels really hard. So I'm running the Boston Marathon. My mom loved that race. I'm not doing it for her, I'm doing it for me, but she's definitely a vital part of Team Marty. I've run Boston before, way back on the 100th anniversary in 1996. I'm not the runner I was back then, and it's been thirteen years since my last marathon, but I feel drawn to do Boston in particular as a way to jump start my 60's. The incomparable Boston marathon champion Des Linden is my coach for all this. I need someone to be accountable to, and I need someone to kick my ass. So thank you, Des. I have weight to lose, miles to run, and a whispering inner voice telling me I still have unfinished business with my mom.

A few nights ago, I dreamed that I was running effortlessly on a green carpet of rolling grass. Running is not like that for me right now. I am slow and every step feels like a victory for having taken it. Nothing effortless at all. But this path I am taking has a purpose all its own, and I can guarantee one and all I will not be drinking warm Bud in a barber chair on my 60th birthday.

First featured on Medium . Follow my Medium ( AuthorMartinDugard ) for essays on history and more.

I bought a pressure washer the other day.

I've wanted one for years. I didn't get around to it until Sadie, our new puppy, began leaving indelicate memories on our backyard pavers. The sort of memories that leave a stain. There is a price to be paid for having a backyard without grass and giving free reign to a puppy many weeks away from being housebroken. So, I bought a pressure washer. It is my new favorite toy.

I've always been like that about tools. I know there's a school of thought that says its best to purchase complete sets, but I've always bought the screwdriver or Skil-Saw when the need made itself known. In this way, over many years, I've filled a large tool chest with all the items a man could need to fix or build almost anything. What I don't have, I go out and purchase, one tool at a time. Borrowing is never an option. There is an intimacy to the way your own personal saw fits in your hand. People get funny about tools.

Researching a book is like building a tool chest. You select a topic and grow the book one nugget of information at a time. I seek out my facts, sentence by sentence, researching as I go, plunging deep down the rabbit hole to gain extreme detail. I have spent entire days on a single sentence. It's not enough to say that Winston Churchill smokes a cigar. Better to name the type (Romeo y Julieta), category (corona), even length (seven inches). Much more interesting to weave in that detail (though not all of it — too many facts clutter the story. Done without elegance, it reads like showing off).

I am a fan of the archive, the database, the museum, the battlefield — anything that sheds light on a story. Research is my drug of choice. Back in college, you couldn't get me into the library. Nowadays, you can't get me out.

At least before Covid.

When I pitched a book about wartime Paris, I fully expected to spend weeks, if not months, in Europe. Romance, wine, amazing food, history around every corner. How else to write accurately about the smell of night air on the Breton coast or the way Paris sounds just before the commuter rush? History is the collision of events, places, and life. Taking Paris would be a chance to investigate a story of epic proportions and walk in the footsteps of de Gaulle, Churchill, and even Hitler.

I still haven't made it to France. Yet I still had a deadline, despite the global shutdown.

Everything was done online. Everything. I had no choice. Digitized newspapers like the New York Times and Times of London provided period detail. Online databases such as (and I'm just picking one of the many priceless sources of information at random) George Washington University's Churchill appointment calendars made it possible to see the handwriting, style of paper, and intensity of the prime minister's day. YouTube showed me detailed videos of long-ago battlefield in Africa and Europe, the sights and sounds of Paris being liberated, and a marvelous video about life inside the French tank known as the Char B1.

Google Earth allowed me to see vivid images of the places I was unable to go. Google Books allowed me to research the scholarship of others. Countless other Google searches told me about plants, artifacts, church bells, and the thousands of other details that go into writing history. When one cannot go to Paris to hear the bells of Notre Dame, listening to the deep peal of the bourdon is as simple as an online search. Try it. Completely enchanting. I'd sometimes write with the bells of Notre Dame ringing through my office. Puts you right there.

In this way, fact by fact, Taking Paris came together. Twenty years ago, that would not have been possible. I would have set the project aside. But the pandemic showed me dozens of new implements for the researcher toolbox. I was forced to dig deeper than ever before, if only to ensure that the reader is not cheated, and that every detail is authentic and close. You be the judge: Taking Paris is available for pre-order now.

But internet-only research is not like my new pressure washer — a favorite toy. I need the hush and wonder of libraries and museums and battlefields. I will be on a plane going somewhere that needs a passport as soon as I am able.

If only to smell the night air.

First featured on Medium . Follow my Medium ( AuthorMartinDugard ) for essays on history and more.

Once upon a time I worked as a deckhand on party boat in Newport Harbor.

A normal cruise ran two hours and started with the busy-ness of pouring drinks, serving brunch, and clearing dishes. But once all that was done and the guests settled down to find the bar on their own there was no need to stay below. So more often than not I would climb up to the bridge, where Chuck the skipper would steer us past the yachts and multi-million dollar bayfront homes, narrating a guided tour over the loudspeaker, pointing out where John Wayne, Jimmy Cagney, Sonny and Cher, and even H.R. Haldeman once lived. Chuck was a gimlet-eyed smoker who lived on his own small boat in the harbor, his kids rowing ashore from the anchorage each morning to go to school. He dressed in the pressed white shirts and epaulets of a professional skipper with a cap to match, and very often I would see him drinking at Snug Harbor, the fisherman's bar in the industrial back corner of the bay where the restaurant employees and frat crowd ended their nights with a kamikaze and a Budweiser. He was friendly in that setting, but never the sort to strike up a conversation.

But things were different on board the Isla Mujeres. Whenever I climbed up to the bridge to get away from the guests, Chuck and I would inevitably get around to talking about the one thing we had in common: a love for history. His knowledge of the Greeks and Romans was profound, and by great luck I was working towards a degree in history. So he would steer the big boat and pick up that microphone from time to time to point out where Captain Blood was filmed or Gilligan began his three hour tour, but mostly we went back and forth about this ancient battle or that, the conversation underscored by the awareness of two things: we both knew our history; and, nobody else that either one of us knew gave a damn about history. It was academic and boring, a compulsory high school checklist class and the sort of lower level college elective required before moving on to the more serious courses like statistics and marketing, which everyone seemed to be taking as part of the always popular business major.

I was not a great college student. If the weather was right I would buy two Molson's at the Two W market and take my beach chair to the sands of Sixth Street, where I would blow off classes and spend the day reading. That's where my dream of being a writer was reborn, overcoming my mother's reminder when I was six and spellbound by the written word: "Don't be silly. Writers don't make any money."

But not long after I stopped that deckhand gig, never again to stand on the bridge and talk history with Chuck the skipper, I began making a living as a writer. Inevitably, I began writing history. And as I did so, I began wondering why more people didn't understand that history has more twists and turns, excitement, and mayhem than any novel I have ever read. The great characters of history are some of the most three-dimensional characters to wander onto the printed page — brutal, brilliant, shameless. Every story, whether the words are on the page or not, begins with "once upon a time." History is like that, an endless saga there for the telling.

But all too often, history is taught and written as a boring list of dates and names. Nothing more. No lust, shame, arrogance, strategy. None of that. So I decided that if I was going to write history, I would try to spice it up a bit. There are three types of history book: those that put you to sleep, the deeply researched academic pieces, and the great ones that take you for a wild page-turning ride that no piece of fiction can match.

So let's just all assume that I'm drawn to the third option. What does this mean? There are a number of great authors writing history that make you turn the page. But it means owing a debt to the story instead of endless facts, sowing those nuggets into the narrative in a way that makes them vital. It's cliffhanger chapter endings, taut sentences, avoidance of tangents — just like Patterson and Ludlum (a blasphemous cross-pollination of fiction and non-fiction). But most of all it's an abiding passion for history, telling the story like you would tell it around a campfire, trying to get the listener to lean in with anticipation, hanging on every word.

The word "story" lives within "history" for a reason.

It's something I learned on the waters of Newport Harbor, once upon a time.

It's been awhile since I wrote in this space, so I thought I'd pass along a little update over what I've been doing this past year.

Last spring, just as Covid was beginning to look like a long term issue, I began working on the first book of my own in ten years. The title is TAKING PARIS. It's about World War II. I love it. It's the kind of fast-paced history you read at the beach. No skimping on the details or the action.

Taking the leap back into the solo world was scary. Bill O' and I have developed a shorthand over the past twelve years co-authoring the Killing series. I rough out the research in linear fashion and then Bill polishes, crafting the story and adding his own writing. Our process — me in California and Bill in New York — is a simple back and forth that involves lengthy hours on the phone, editing word-by-word and line-by-line.

Now, I'm of the belief that I have the best gig in publishing. I write books with a famous co-author whose friendship I enjoy enormously, get my name on the cover, immerse myself in research and writing five days a week (sometime six, but there's always one day where I shut down), get paid well, never get bothered in the grocery store like authors who are actually famous, and never do a lick of publicity. Above all, it's fun.

And then there's my shadow career.

I've always had a policy, born of my freelance magazine days, of taking every writing job that came along — with the exception of those I found morally or ethically troubling. So even in the midst of turning out a Killing book each year, I have still made time for shadow assignments as a ghost writer. This is different from co-authoring in that my name was never on the cover. You will find my fingerprints on a few bestsellers you might have read in the last decade, and maybe recognized a turn of phrase, but my voice and name are not to be found. Yes, it is soul-sucking work. But a quick payday is a quick payday. The ghost books paid college tuitions, landscaped my backyard, and let me fly business. Yet ghosting was work, and hardly fun.

Back when I blew off classes in college, drove to the beach, parked my chair in the sand and spent the afternoon reading Hemingway, Wolfe, and Thompson — all the while dreaming of making it as a writer — nothing inside me thought it sounded romantic to write books for self-help gurus.

So this year I took the pledge: no more ghostwriting. I will co-author books with Bill O' as long as I am able. The process is rigorous and joyful at once, and who can argue with 18 million books in print? And I am also pursuing solo projects. However, my days of ghosting are over.

I digress. Back to Taking Paris.

I love this book. I'd have to go back over my journals to be sure, but I'm pretty sure I began writing the first chapter almost exactly a year ago. The process was horrible at first, a paragraph a day at most, struggling to find my voice. After three months work I still had less than fifty pages. My deadline was November 1, then December 1, and then just a wish that I would finish. I gambled with sentence structure in a way I have never done before. I took chances on the page, banishing that critical voice inside my head telling me I couldn't do this or that. I accepted that not everyone will love my darling the way I do. I began a new habit of printing out the last twenty pages I'd written, then editing them at dawn, cup of coffee at my elbow, on the pine farm table in my backyard. Just me, the pen, the pages, and the rising sun. And Django, of course, my beloved hound. I grew to love the process so much that I never wanted it to end. With just two chapters to go, finish line in sight, I even took a couple days off, not wanting that particular writing experience to be over. That has never happened before and it may never happen again.

But I found my voice. I found a new way to write history. I set aside my fears and pushed myself in a new direction. Bill O' was kind enough to give the manuscript an early read and offer a blurb for the cover. Taking Paris was supposed to be released on November 2 of this year, but a couple other big titles made for too much competition. We pushed back to October 5, before it was announced that the new Killing book would be published the same day(!). Then we moved all the way back to September 7, which is exactly where I want to be. The link is already up on Amazon. You can pre-order now.

There's my update. Hope you're all well.

PATRICK T. FALLON/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

I'm the guy who writes books in his garage office in slippers and sweatpants, and very often little else. So I'm in no position to judge my neighbors, be it the mom next door banging on her keyboards while trying to teach herself music, her son with a passion for purchasing old police cars, or my other next door neighbor from China whose husband died suddenly two years ago and who has suddenly found fashion sense and purchased a stylish Mercedes.

Our neighbors from England just sold their home to some gearheads from Corona, off to seek the log cabin life in Idaho. The Home Depot manager amazingly born two weeks earlier than me in the same New Hampshire hospital lives to the right of Callie and I on the cul-de-sac alongside our old friends who just put in a pool.

We all wave. Sometimes we don't talk for weeks, but we all wave. And sometimes we get together down at Paul's on the other end of the street, who taps multiple kegs at a time. No surprise that everyone loves Paul.

A lot of flags went up during the most recent presidential campaign. Yard signs. Surprised revelations about who supported who. A few of those big flags in the back of pickups.

Then came the election. And we kept on waving to flag bearers and yard signers alike.

And then that bullshit at the Capitol Building. People shitting and pissing in the corridors of a mansion they dared to call the "people's house" — as if you would drop your pants and take a dump in full view of your grandmother.

Yet we kept on waving.

Two weeks passed.

This is America. Today is a new day. New president. We were friends in my neighborhood yesterday and we'll be friends tomorrow.

This is my town. This is my country. So flawed and yet so awesome.

God Bless America.

For a great number of years, more than I care to count, I filled my down time with training. I was always training for some new grail: marathons, triathlons, adventure races, mud runs, and on. I wasn't a professional, so the hours couldn't always be justified and more than once led to a major-major-major fight with Callie. But training was my jam. I eventually gave up triathlon because it didn't really feel like my tribe. Adventure racing was a means to an end, launching my writing career and allowing me to learn what it felt like to succeed and fail on a very big endurance stage. Running is still with me, though my marathon days are happily over. I broke three hours, ran sub 3:02 several times, and even paced my brother-in-law to a 3:34 with just two days’ notice. But I was never happy running marathons. It was about achievement, not adventure, which is a hollow reason for undertaking any endeavor.

I can't remember the last time I trained for something. Maybe that midlife crisis long ago when I convinced myself I was capable of qualifying for the Olympic Trials. It got me very fit, but there was never a chance I was going to hit the qualifier even though I convinced myself that it would happen if I trained hard enough. It was a lie I told myself to find yet another reason to distract myself from connecting with the people I love — and who would be happy to love me if only I would hang around long enough to sit still and be with them.

But a friend asked recently if I was training for something. I tried to explain that I am happiest trying to be a better writer, and that my competitive demands are more than met by coaching young runners. He didn't get it. I felt like my explanation needed more explanation. It's hard to explain that I find enough accomplishment in the daily struggle to be kind to those around me. To not be judgmental. Or sarcastic. Or to wish ill upon those who have wronged me. Or pray for people I really don't like much at all. Or to just sit with my wife and talk, not allowing my subconscious the illicit thrill of being with her but not really listening to her, lost in a quiet mental distance brought on by scheming how many miles I can train the next morning. And how fast they will be. And the length of the rest interval.

Instead, after a couple weeks of thought, I came to the conclusion that I need to train for something.

WTF? Old habits, maybe. Training is an easy way to introduce discipline into a daily schedule. It's one thing to say I'm going to run every day, but it's quite another to literally need to run every day in order to achieve a goal.

I also think it's fear. The last year rocked me, and Covid added a kicker. I read a comment by a Benedictine nun the other day, something to the effect that there are some relationships we can't fix in life, but find their proper place in death. Made me think of my mom. She's growing on me, I'll tell you. A year after her death I honestly feel like I understand her for the first time ever.

I also find myself fighting that inner vulnerability battle with my wife, my kids, and my friends, trying to be transparent and real without the hiding place training provides. I am a solitary athlete, unwilling to run with others because I like the alone time. There is solace in those miles — and escape. But I'm starting to realize that escape means many things, and running away from people I love just because I am afraid of talking about the things that scare me or the still small needs that make me feel weak.

So am I training for something? I haven't figured it out yet. Went for a short run this morning. Just me and the trail. It was a good sweat. I was slow but did not judge myself. And when I was done, walking five minutes to flush before getting back into the car for the drive home, I wondered if there wasn't something I should be training for. Not Boston. Not New York. And I certainly wouldn't defile a trip to London or Berlin with the pre-marathon fidgets.

But something. What in the world is wrong with me?

I don't know any black sailors. I'm not talking historically, when man o' wars were regularly crewed by men of many races. I'm talking about your average posh marina crowd. Not saying there are no such men or women, because I'm sure there are die-hard black sailors here in America who can't wait to unfurl the spinnaker. I salute all of you. But Brown University yesterday cut men's cross country and track and field, not using the coronavirus as an excuse by name, but blaming the cancellation on the coronavirus without having to say so as a pretext for what they did next. . . .

Add a competitive sailing team. One of the most diverse sports at Brown, counting more black men than lacrosse, baseball, ice hockey, and crew combined, the track team is now history. I can only imagine where they're going to find equal diversity with the new sailing team.

I blame Kobe Bryant.

Ever since Kobe died, things have gone downhill in the US. First, Kobe. Then Coronavirus. Then rampant hand-washing. Then school and business closures. Then the end of sports as we know it. Then, the white-entitlement protesters for the beaches and buildings, wielding automatic weapons where allowed (imagine a group of men of color walking around with automatic weapons — there'd be hundreds of Floyd's). Then George Floyd. Then all the rest.

I was leaving Lowe's here in RSM the other day after buying a pair of trees which I hope will grow tall enough to form a perfect shield between myself and my neighbor. All this time has shown me we need a little space. I heard that there was a protest at the City Hall. Part of me wanted to go in a show of support, but I had those trees in the back of the truck. So I went home.

I stand at attention for the National Anthem. Full attention. Hand over my heart. I sometimes weep at the sound of the Star-Spangled Banner, knowing the cost borne by so many for our freedoms. I would never kneel. Not ever. Not on one knee, not on two. The National Anthem is sacred to me.

And so is the Constitution. If someone chooses the Anthem as a chance to express themselves by kneeling, I support them 100%. America is built on revolution and change and freedom of expression. Frankly, right now we need a revolution. And it's up to privileged white guys like me to get a little uncomfortable on their way home from a routine visit to home improvement store, and at least stop by a protest to show my support. The kids in this video are part of the USATF Foundation Olympic Development Program, something I founded a few years ago. This is the future of my sport. Might be a few future sailors among them, but that's ok.

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This is my tribe. These are my people. The good people of RSM have become an outdoorsy bunch during all this craziness, swapping their youth soccer sideline chairs for the more active sport of wading in Trabuco Creek. The water was relatively brisk and a foot high six weeks ago, but now it's just a few inches deep, soon to be dried up completely until the next rainy season. But there's nothing else to do. So entire families hike down from the mesa into O'Neill Park, then tailgate in clear cold water. Children roll around in the stream while their parents pull a cold one from the cooler. It's a little desperate, a little heartwarming, and a little folksy, easily the most obvious reminder I have yet seen that there is absolutely no other choice in town when it comes to group activity.

Sure, we try. Selma's has the patio open on weekends, but it's not the same experience. Sitting there behind a row of six-foot hedges feels elicit and covert, like a long-ago secret high school party after a Friday night football game, expecting the cops to crash anytime. And if you look closely, it seems that everyone and their mother is a runner these days. I'm all for it. But I keep wondering where they all come from? Where does this sudden primal urge to log a few miles comes from? I think I might have an answer: gyms. With 24 Hour Fitness closed, all those treadmills have been unplugged, too. So people who previously exercised inside are suddenly loping along in the sunshine and fresh air, as God imagined. I wonder how they will ever be able to go back.

It's the same with bikes. Those wolfpacks of weekend warriors are now no longer just weekend — they're all the time. Every day is Fourth of July on the trails. But the electric bike crowd has now joined the fun. I'm not sure how I feel about electric bikes. On the one hand, they've made it possible for more people to enjoy cycling. On the other, there's something frustrating about grinding up a steep trail like mile-long Live Oak on a standard mountain bike, only to be passed by someone in flip-flops on an electric beach cruiser with a handlebar basket whose barely touching the pedals. No judgment. In this world of nothing to do, an electric bike is the closest thing we have to riding Space Mountain at Disneyland.

Damn, I miss Disneyland. Even typing the word makes me sad. It's creatively rejuvenating to sit in New Orleans Square in the early morning with a cup of coffee, marveling at the intricate detail and level of storytelling that goes into every ride. Sometimes, when I'm stuck with a writing project, the answers usually come after a short run or a trip to Disneyland. Not the whole day. Just an hour. But something magic happens in that hour, some sort of creative reset.

What's that going to look like when it reopens? Disneyland and crowds are synonymous.

The good news is that I have a haircut scheduled for Friday. I look perverse right now, this mop of hair without structure or shape completely altering my appearance. I just happened to be driving past my barbershop on Friday (in these strange times, I won't tell you the name, for fear that it will be shut down once again before my appointment). I parked the truck IMMEDIATELY, then went in to get a haircut — only to be handed a business card and told I needed to make an appointment. The conversation was very sotto voce, as if I was being granted a speakeasy password. I lowered my gaze then scuttled back out, not wanting to do a single thing that might break the newfound vow of confidence between my masked barber and I.

In this world of nothing to do there are more and more high points, like the high schooler who broke four minutes for the mile last night in Sacramento, and my good friend Frank Raia winning the online auction for the Immunity Idol from the most recent season of Survivor. It's also my anniversary this week, and my birthday next — always nice back-to-back celebrations. Throw in Father's Day in a few weeks and it's a trifecta.

And I am on book six of the George Smiley novels of John Le Carre, which I am reading in chronological order for the first time ever during all this. All told, the collection clocks in at almost 2,000 pages. Never have I had so much time to read, and I am enjoying it thoroughly. As I've said for a long while, this will all be over soon. We will miss this pause button. We really will. But I have a feeling we won't look back with nostalgia for six months or a year. So that can wait.

What will I do when all this is over? I'm going to Disneyland.

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