Hello,

It’s a sunny day here in Savannah.  In just two weeks we have 23,000 runners coming to town for the Rock and Roll Marathon.  Runners get my praise.  You die-hard souls of all ages hit the trails in all kinds of weather, push forward no matter what, with an unwavering dedication.  You go miles and miles day after day reaching personal goals of fitness.  You make it look easy, however I suspect that is a myth.

Just like sitting down to write, my guess is that becoming a runner takes hard work and requires a mountain of discipline.  I’m sure as we writers struggle to keep the creative juices flowing, you runners and bikers, and swimmers, and yes, you marvelous triathletes also must fight numerous temptations to stray from regimented patterns of training.

We writers can relate.  We know how difficult it can be to get to the finish line.  We get that I can’t keep going feeling in the middle of a book.  We think, I’m out of juice.  Why did I think I could do this?  I stink.  I should have taken up gardening.  Whatever made me think I could go down this road?  What was I thinking?  But then, we slink through the rough spots.  I guess for a writer it’s that period when observations start coming out as prose and it all feels so good — all the way to the finish line.

Okay, this was fun to write.  It makes me want to go out for some exercise and then get back to work revising my novel about the sisters, Tessa and Claudine.  It is high time we headed further toward the finish line.

PS:  Kudos to daughter-in-law Kara Thom, a writer and a runner, who is This Month’s Revlon Role Model and co-author of Hot (Sweaty) Mamas: Five Secrets to Life As A Fit Mom. She is featured in a Revlon ad in the October 24 People Magazine.  Way to go Kara.

Lisbeth

 Mother’s Day makes me think  of the time I visited my daughter for an overnight, in her very first place of her own, right out of college.   She had landed a job after enough rejections to cover a whole wall. 

I looked at her that morning, dressed in her tailored suit of light gray, holding a briefcase, amazed.  Could this be the child that I had to walk to kindergarten every day for two weeks until I convinced her she could walk the path alone?  Could she actuallly be out in the world selling business forms? 

“Make yourself at home,” my daughter said before she left.  She put down her briefcase and gave me a hug.  Then she went out the door, briefcase in hand.  A part of me went with her. 

After she left left, I drank a cup of tea from the heart-covered mug we sent her for Valentine’s Day when she was in college.   On her coffee table lay copies of Business Week and Time.  She threw out her issues of Seventeen when she came home to retrieve her belongings.  We watched as she pulled out of the driveway,  a U-haul trailer in tow.  

Months later, when I arrived for my visit, the towels lay on the bed for me just the way I always put them out for her on trips home from college.  She served me a cold drink.  Offered me a snack.  Made me feel at home in her home.  It was like watching a movie of myself.  Our visit was short but we covered a lifetime of memories. Shared thoughts.  Ideas. Dreams for the future.  We laughed a lot.  

When it was time to leave, I grabbed a pen, a piece of note paper from her desk top and wrote a note thanking her for the visit.  I told her that we were so PROUD of her.  Then I went out the door, taking with me the hug she gave me earlier.   I left her home and headed for mine.  

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you mothers.