I know I spend a lot of time on my blog discussing events and issues that make me decidedly unhappy, but today I’m going to talk about something that is bringing me some joy right now!
Ambassadorships are a fun way to engage with the running community, especially on social media. This is the time of year that if you are friends with runners, you may see a smattering of logos streaming across your feed, with runners announcing their affiliations. Is it necessary to do this to enjoy the sport? Absolutely not! But if I love a product, I talk about it anyway. I might as well get some discounts for my free advertising! Many of these programs also have Facebook groups where you get to meet other athletes from all over the world. I have met some of my best online friends through these programs.
With the exception of the Foot Levelers Blue Ridge Marathon, I started with a clean slate this year. (And if you are looking for a fun runcation, their races are very well organized with beautiful courses. Roanoke is a fun place to visit! You can use my code MAGEE2022 for 20% off registration for any race distance). I am excited to tell you that I have been selected for both the Boco Gear and SaltStick ambassador programs!
My Ragnar visor is made by Boco Gear!
Boco Gear is famous for their elastic back visors and Technical Trucker hats! They also make epically awesome gear for many races, like Ragnar and Ironman, and for smaller companies as well. Even better, their founder is a woman! They have a great custom gear program, so if you need that special hat for your run club, business, or event, they can make something completely unique and amazing just for you. I especially love that their visors incorporate the elastic back into the design (I’m such a visor girl!).
SaltStick has been an essential part of my electrolyte regimen for long runs and races for years. I especially love all of their Fast Chews, which taste like Sweet Tarts, but with all of the essential salts you need to prevent muscle cramping. I could not have made it through my ultramarathon without these. All but the orange flavor are vegan! If you want to check out their products, you can get 20% off with my Friends and Family discount, Anne2022. I’m really happy to be a part of the #sweatercrew this year!
Ready for a long run!
If you aren’t already familiar with these companies, I hope you check them out for yourself and find out how great they are!
And as of today, I have officially re-upped my coaching gig with the Pink Nation, one of the marathon training teams with Sports Backers. I’m excited to usher in a new group of marathoners and to reunite with old friends. Like summer camp for grownups, it’s the most wonderful time of the year!
Monday was a flexible learning day for my junior in high school. This new phenomenon in learning leaves it up to the student and parents to come up with meaningful learning activities on these days. On past flexible learning days, we have visited the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in downtown Richmond, driven to Charlottesville to visit Carter Mountain, or allowed her to simply catch up on homework.
As we approach her senior year, the school encourages parents to take their students of this age to tour colleges. On this day, we visited my older daughter at Longwood. In lieu of a tour, which she has done before with her sister, my younger daughter got to sit in on her sister’s Women’s and Gender Studies class. We also toured the Honors College offices and lounge. And after a great lunch at Bandito’s Mexican restaurant, we visited the Robert Russa Moton Museum.
I love that we somehow managed to fit in some very liberal teaching on this flexible learning day. I feel like we just made a rude gesture to some of the new regulations proposed already this legislative season as we ushered in a conservative governor in Virginia. He has already issued an executive order banning the teaching of critical race theory, which was never a part of our K-12 curriculum anyway. There are also bills in queue in the General Assembly to reduce the rights of the LBGTQ community. Maybe our new governor should tour the Moton Museum, too, just to remind him how significant a part hate and discrimination played in Virginia’s history.
The empty pedestal that once held the Lee monument in Richmond. The pedestal has now also been dismantled.
As an aside, just to be clear on my stance on the recent removal of Confederate monuments in Richmond and the name changes to several schools in our region once named for Confederate leaders, I believe there is a striking difference in changing who and what we honor in our society and learning from our painful and ugly history. There’s a reason why we don’t put villains on a pedestal.
The Moton School was the former Black high school in Prince Edward County, and it played a big role in the very ugly history of racism in Virginia. Now, before you go and tattle about me to Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, who just this week announced his creation of the “tip line” where you can report teachers for using “divisive practices,” including discussing racism and LBGTQ issues, I must clarify that I’m not, in fact, a public school teacher. Yes, this tip line is actually a thing, astonishingly. As if teachers’ jobs aren’t challenging enough.
When I was a student at Longwood myself in the 90’s, the Moton school building was an eyesore. The old, dilapidated structure was boarded up and falling apart. It is the first landmark you see as you drive into the town of Farmville on Main Street from the west side. The school has been completely refurbished and is now rightfully representing a meaningful, albeit painful, part of American history. It’s crazy that this quiet little town contains such a disgraceful past, a past I was shocked and ashamed to discover during my college career.
One of the best classes I took at Longwood studied Prince Edward County’s role in Brown vs. Board of Education. Students in the Moton school protested their poor conditions, including significant overcrowding, hand-me-down books, and lack of resources like a gym, clinic, or showers. A Richmond lawyer decided to take their case to court, but only on the premise of forcing desegregation. This was the only way to ensure equality.
Just one of the vile statements immortalized in the Moton Museum.
The leaders of Prince Edward County decided it would simply close schools for everyone rather than provide integrated public education, and they did so from 1959 to 1964. The Moton Museum clearly describes the timeline during the debate for integration and highlights the villains and heroes in the process. Reading some of the awful things that came out of the mouths of leaders at that time, well, some of the statements made me gasp out loud and brought tears to my eyes. The words stung. And although no one in their right minds would say any of those repulsive things publicly these days, I can’t help but acknowledge they are likely still being said behind closed doors. I mean, if politicians have the audacity to separate African-Americans from Americans in a statement about equality in a news conference in 2022, I have to assume there’s definitely uglier things being spoken in private.
One of the heroes of this era.
Our class at Longwood was a joint venture between the Honors College and the African American Studies program. We had the most amazing guest speakers, the most famous of whom was Civil Rights activist Julian Bond. He was the most charismatic person I have ever met. We also went into the community and interviewed people directly affected by the schools closing. Many of them were shipped off to relatives up north, fragmenting families and causing great emotional turmoil. Others simply never finished school. The damage done will have ripple effects for generations. And while Black children had very limited opportunities for education during the school closures, whites formed their own private school. Now known as the Fuqua School, Prince Edward Academy was their answer for refusing to integrate.
Courage, indeed. Would you have the courage to do what these young people did?
We cannot simply sweep our past ugliness under a rug and forget about it. This seems to be the genteel way of the South. Make no mistake that there is plenty of ugly left in the area, as the Confederate Flag proudly displayed on the side of 360 in Amelia County on the way to Farmville from Richmond suggests. If we refuse to include any acknowledgement about racism in our curriculum for learning, we will be doomed to repeat our mistakes. And how can you learn about colonial times, the Civil War, or WWII without discussing racism? More importantly, we need to understand and appreciate the hardships that are faced by people of color in this world. We can’t change our biology, but we can learn to respect the characteristics that make each of us unique. Without knowledge and empathy, there can be no healing. But honestly, I don’t know how anyone can fully heal from racial trauma, and it’s not fair to simply move on like no crimes against humanity have been committed. And the crimes continue, sometimes in a different package.
It’s interesting to draw parallels today to the “separate but equal” mantra from the 50’s and 60’s as we now debate voting rights, again, in America. One may argue that the right to vote hasn’t actually been taken away with all of these new voting restrictions. However, you can’t tell me that reducing polling places in traditionally Black and Latino neighborhoods, making it a crime to give water to people waiting in line to vote, or extreme gerrymandering to dilute the power of your vote are measures of equality. These are strategies to suppress your voice; to temper the democratic process. It’s the same mantra. Different lipstick.
One thing that veganism has taught me is that all living beings deserve love and respect, but especially our fellow humans. To treat people unequally is to admit that you think some people are less than human. Let that discomfort sink in. Clearly, our nation has made egregious errors with this regard. From stealing land from Native Americans to slavery in our infancy as a country, to Japanese internment camps during WWII, to Jim Crow laws, to abusive border practices toward immigrants today, just to scratch the surface, our country has quite a history of cruelty. We really must fight against oppression of any kind, or we are not actually the Land of the Free. We are the land of the rich and powerful, in debt to the almighty altar of capitalism, while the rest of us fight for the leftovers at the table.
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As you walk into the Moton Museum, you are guided into their gift shop. They have multiple books for sale, many of which I already have in my own collection. One stuck out to me, though, and it’s a title I recently picked up: Something Must Be Done About Prince Edward County, by Kristen Green. Now I am reading it. The author is a white woman who grew up in Farmville, reconciling her feelings about the discovery of the awful truths of her town, who also happens to be a talented investigative journalist. I highly recommend it.
Thank you for reading yet another political post. There are so many awful things going on in our nation right now, and I just really need to take the time to share my thoughts on occasion.
What do you think about this movement by conservatives to even more clearly whitewash our history? How do you feel about public school teachers being used as pawns in this process, as if their jobs aren’t difficult enough, even without the pandemic? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
My older daughter reached out to me in dire need of a decidedly old school office supply that is apparently not readily available in her college town: White Out. Do you remember using this in school? I do. Except it came with that little brush that got all dried up and goopy over time. Now it’s got a sponge applicator. I did find it for her, though.
My hunt for this item led me to the office supply aisle at Target. Man, how I love office supplies! My favorite part of every school year was the ritual of hunting and gathering my notebooks, pens, and pencils for the pending school work. And, ohhh… that Trapper Keeper! I still look forward to browsing the back to school displays and helping my own kids shop for supplies as summers end each year.
Growing up going to a church in downtown Hampton, VA, there were many little stores in which to kill time waiting for church activities, and I remember walking down to the office supply store nearby many times, just to browse. I recently watched Hidden Figures again, which is set in Hampton in the 1960’s. There’s a scene where Mary’s husband gifts her some mechanical pencils before her first night classes toward her engineering degree. It occurred to me that he could have purchased those from that very office supply store! I wonder if that little store still exists?
I love all the things in these stores: fancy pens and pencils, brightly colored markers, crisp resume paper, beautiful notebooks, sophisticated journals, pencil holders. I sincerely crave fresh starts and organization. As much as I strive for this, though, I often fall short of my personal expectations.
My love for paper and color fueled a fairly healthy obsession with scrapbooking in the early 2000’s. I even had several projects published in magazines. I still have stacks of Bazzil textured paper and designer patterned paper. I really miss browsing my local scrapbook store.
Last week, I partially satiated this love and actually purchased a planner. I know; how 2022 of me. I have a couple of roles I am helping with in my local running club, and along with my personal race calendar, weekend work requirements, and now obligations to the club, I need to have my thoughts on paper. Going old school, like the White Out.
I suppose I may have cursed this new year. I did not purchase a planner for 2021. It seemed futile, with so little besides surviving a global pandemic on the agenda. It did turn out better than expected, however. I’m still doubtful for a better year in 2022, but I have to have hope.
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For the record, that little store in Hampton is still in business. I looked it up!
Do you love office supplies as much as I do? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
I had an interesting conversation with a fellow Vegan about these. She was upset about a few things, as am I. But I have other vegan and vegetarian friends who have happily embraced the new plant based fast food item on the block. Shades of gray. Everyone’s entitled to their interpretation.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s really exciting that fast food corporations are slowly waking up to the fact that more people want to eat plant based, and I’m really happy that companies like Beyond Meat are getting an even bigger seat at this table. However, there are a few things that disappoint me about these products:
They aren’t cooked vegan
That’s right. Much like the Impossible Whopper from Burger King that is broiled on the same line as regular Whoppers, the Beyond Nuggets at KFC are deep fried in the same grease as their chicken. It’s even in the fine print of their ads. This means if you are really vegan, you will likely experience a great deal of GI distress after eating these. To me, that’s just not worth it!
Plant Based is being exploited
Like it or not, this moniker is utilized for financial gain. So many restaurants are jumping on this bandwagon. Just because something is plant based, however, does not mean that it’s vegan. But naming it plant based may increase sales. These are simply the rules of capitalism. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, as long as what you’re selling truly is plant based, but in the case of KFC nuggets, they are not. Know what you are buying. Read the labels and fine print!
It’s expensive!
Why must vegan products cost so much more? Like the upcharge for plant based milks at Starbucks (which has now been rectified), vegan fast food can be much more costly, with “plant based” combos priced a dollar or more than their meat based counterparts. It just adds another layer to the theory that eating vegan is bougie and unrealistic.
One good thing…
A major redeeming factor in all of these negatives? It gets people who are curious about eating vegan to actually try a plant based product. They may even realize how good it can taste to eat this way! So if it gets someone to shift their diet a bit, perhaps even reaching for the pack of Beyond Burgers instead of beef burgers during their next grocery trip, then I think these products have served their real purpose. It’s like the gateway drug to a vegan lifestyle.
What would make me happy?
In a perfect world, if businesses really wanted to meet the dietary needs and wants of vegans, they would provide real vegan options prepared separately from non-vegan food, and they wouldn’t price them higher than their meat based counterparts. That would make me, and many other vegans, very happy, but I doubt that this is realistic. I don’t often eat fast food, but I would love to have multiple fast food options on road trips! For now, I will force my husband to eat Taco Bell on our next trip down I95, which, ironically, is owned by the same company as KFC.
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The lead photo is of my last two chickens who crossed the rainbow bridge in 2018.
Everyone has to navigate shades of gray in life. The fact that I haven’t eaten chicken in 8 years would mean that trying this product would in all likelihood make me feel sick for about a day. To me, that’s just not worth the risk. How do you feel about plant based foods in restaurants that aren’t actually vegan or vegetarian? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
You know, sometimes you’re just a girl, standing in front of the fridge, asking it to inspire you to make something amazing for dinner out of nothing. That was me the other night. And my fridge delivered!
I spotted a forgotten container of baby bellas when I realized what I could make for dinner. On this cold January day, I was suddenly craving cream of mushroom soup with rice. With no recipe, I just threw this together. There were absolutely no leftovers, and even my mushroom reluctant daughter enjoyed it! So this will definitely go into rotation as a winter meal, and now I’m sharing the recipe with you!
Ingredients:
1 onion, diced
1 T minced garlic
Olive oil, for sauteing
1 carton baby bella mushrooms, diced small. (I used my hand chopper)
½ cup uncooked rice (I like Basmati)
1 can Great Northern Beans, drained and rinsed
¼ cup flour
1 carton vegetable broth
1 T Better Than Bouillon paste, vegetable flavor
1 tsp thyme
Salt and pepper to taste
1 cup Silk Protein Milk, original
Directions:
In a soup pot or Dutch oven, warm 1-2 T olive oil over medium heat until fragrant.
Add onions and garlic, add salt, and saute until just turning brown.
Add diced mushrooms and saute until brown.
Sprinkle flour over onion and mushroom mixture, stirring until combined.
Deglaze the pan with a bit of the broth, stirring to get all of the brown bits off the bottom of the pan.
Add remaining broth, beans, bouillon paste, and rice, pepper to taste, and thyme, and bring to a boil.
Reduce heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes.
Add plant milk until desired consistency is achieved (about 1 cup).
Adjust seasonings to taste, and enjoy! Serves 4.
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Do you love soup weather as much as I do? If you try this recipe, post on Instagram and tag me!@annecreates As always, I hope you all are safe and healthy.
One of my favorite movies of all time is Legally Blonde. (I’m blonde. Go figure…) One of my sole sisters and I would routinely quote lines from this movie on any given long run, often during moments of sheer runner’s high, and lightening any effort produced by our runs.
One of our favorite lines? You know the one. Elle says it during one of the board room meetings during her internship at the law firm, as they are discussing Brooke Wyndham’s murder case:
“I just don’t think Brooke could have done this. Exercise gives you endorphins. Endorphins make you happy. Happy people just don’t shoot their husbands. They just don’t!”
Elle Woods
Indeed. In my last post, I did whine a bit about the state of this world. We’re all entitled to whine a bit now and then. I also posed a question. What is the panacea to the doom and gloom? For me, it’s exercise, and, more specifically, running.
In this dawn of new beginnings in a new year, I know there’s lots of societal pressure to lose weight, diet, and exercise. But I’m here to tell you that losing weight shouldn’t be the focus. Instead, think of changing habits to improve your mental state.
Eating healthier reduces inflammation, as most of our most well loved junk food offers nothing real to nourish and repair our bodies. We can do so much for ourselves simply by avoiding drive throughs and eating at home more often.
Exercise burns off steam. And although sometimes training for big races can bring anxiety, especially prior to big distance runs, the energy you burn running these super long distances quells much of that built up anxiety and any other stress you may be feeling in your life.
There was a meme circulating a while ago. It referenced the stress of the pandemic, and that at this point, they would have to run across the country to burn off all of the stress they are experiencing. I can really identify with that! So during my ultra race, that’s essentially what I did. And when I thought I was tired, Mother Nature chose to make it rain. Torrentially. It was at that moment that the bottom fell out of the sky that I realized she had that one last trick to help cleanse my soul of angst. It was cathartic. And it was crazy.
One of my local friends recently reached out to me about running her first half marathon in October. She wanted reassurance that this goal was feasible. Of course, it is! I encouraged her to sign up to train for the Ukrop’s Monument 10k this spring. It’s a great first step! These training teams are like the gateway drug to bigger goals. I’m hoping she will also train with Sports Backers this fall with the half marathon training teams.
With some of my fellow Pink Nation coaches at the finish line of the Richmond Marathon 2021
Training teams can change your life. Any group exercise can help you stay accountable and motivated. If you are lucky enough to find a running partner (or multiples!), you will be less likely to bail on a run. I am an introvert at heart, but training with others has opened up doors I never thought about. When I started this journey, I never pictured myself as a coach, but now I am. I’m also getting more involved with our local Road Runners club. It’s amazing to give back to a sport that has given so much to me. And I also never imagined evolving into an ultrarunner, either. That seemed like the ultimate crazy. Yet meeting other runners through multiple teams nudged me to push the boundaries of crazy goals just a bit further.
I’m not saying that you have to become an ultramarathoner to transform your life. But maybe, just maybe, running can be a way to heal your soul. Remember: endorphins make you happy. Exercising refills my cup. So even if it’s not running, find some way to burn off some steam. Something that you can control. Because really, before we can help anyone else, we must take care of ourselves. It’s worth it!
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What are your favorite, healthy ways to manage stress and anxiety? I’d love to hear about it.
In one final ritual of the holiday season, I took down the Christmas tree today. It’s January 7th, 2022, as I begin writing this. It’s such a mundane task, and it seems like it always goes quicker than putting it up. I like to listen to music while I do this. It’s a task I usually do alone. Today, I watched reruns of The Golden Girls, in honor of Betty White. I was in stitches! It was a great comic relief for the other things I’m feeling right now.
I am processing two simultaneous ends in my life, both slow and evolving: the death of my religious life and the demise of American democracy. And like it or not, we are still in the midst of a pandemic that will seemingly never end.
Dismantling of Faith
I’ve been deconstructing to some extent since college, when I was finally extracted from the expected routine of going to church every Sunday. When I found myself on late nights giggling with girlfriends about our experiences from childhood, and then met with their shock when I revealed what was normal at my church, that was the beginning of the end.
The older I get, the more my dad especially shares with me other secrets from church that I never knew; things that make me wonder why they stayed. But now my parents are finally seeing a bit of what I see in my home church. I spent a significant amount of time Christmas day on the phone with them discussing their current issues with their church. It makes me so sad that this organization, this church body of which they have been members for over 50 years, has cast them aside, now that as they age and deal with medical issues, they are unable to give of their time and talents to the church, and they are not wealthy enough to give money. I was so resentful for so long that they chose to stay and support an organization that hurt me so much, and now they are personally on the receiving end of that pain. My dad has a graduate degree in theology. I know how important religion is to him. I sincerely hope my parents find both the courage to leave and to find a new house of worship that accepts them, their progressive values, and who will bring their lives some comfort. For me, witnessing their hurt is casting another nail in the coffin, leaving little possibility that I will ever return to organized religion.
Ironically, as my distrust in the church was beginning to reach a critical stage, I was asked to sing something for Easter Sunday at the church I joined as an adult. The piece I chose? I Know that my Redeemer Liveth, from Handel’s Messiah. I think that was in 2011. Even as I sang the words, my heart was feeling the split. My rational mind understood this was one last attempt to hold on to what I knew was fading: my faith in church.
A tattered American flag in my town.
The Twilight’s Last Gleaming
The other demise happening before our eyes is that of American democracy. President Biden’s speech on the anniversary of the insurrection was magnificent, but it also makes me feel like we keep throwing out whatever life preservers we can, all last hope efforts to rescue our struggling, dismantled, democracy from impending doom. A final song; one last attempt to preserve faith in something that may no longer exist. Ironically, religion is partially responsible for this, as the voices of Christian Nationalism scream especially loudly.
Some days, I watch or listen to the news, and I’m overwhelmed. I feel as though our democracy is crumbling into a pile of sand, and as we try desperately to pick up the pieces, the fine grains simply slip through our fingers, small and no longer significant, never to be retrieved again.
The once solid rock of democracy is unstable. Just like I once relied on the church for stability in my life, it, too, is unstable and unreliable. On Christ the solid rock I stand… not so much. I’ve long since processed the grief from leaving the church. But now I grieve for my parents as they realize that the church isn’t what they thought, either.
This is a fit tested N95, which is the mask we wear when working with patients who are Covid positive.
Just Because We’re Tired of it, Doesn’t Make it Over
I’m also still processing my feelings about the one thing that’s not ending anytime soon: this pandemic. Everyone seems to either think the worst is over, believing that the Omicron variant is so mild, we can ignore it, or have completely given up on fighting it altogether. Delta is still circulating, too. Hey, what’s a few more lives, when the economy is so much more important than your loved ones? (Note my sarcasm.)
I was watching a segment on the news last night. They were talking to a handful of doctors about how so many hospital admissions are not actually because of Covid, but because the patients happen to have Covid, they have to be counted as Covid admissions. This makes me so angry! It legitimizes the feelings of those who have developed a sense of comfort with this virus, a sense that it’s not as serious as many know it to be. Healthcare providers still shoulder a huge burden of care working with these patients. You still have to donn all the PPE. Just because we now know better what to expect and how to manage this condition doesn’t make it easy. And who’s to say that their problems weren’t exacerbated by the virus? It was a very one-sided report, and a slap in the face to those of us who care for these patients.
As you likely know, I work in a hospital. As a physical therapist, I may not be in Covid rooms every day, but my work is certainly affected by its presence. Our census in rehab is now so low, it may be a few weeks before I will work again as a PT. I will likely fill in for staff who are in short supply, like patient care techs. This is one reason why our census is low. It’s not that there aren’t patients who need rehab. We simply can’t fully staff the unit, and this is a universal problem in healthcare right now. It’s reflected in the new CDC guidelines for return to work with Covid, which are chilling. What about the next variant that emerges? Because it’s coming, I’m sure of it.
New Year’s Day was the roughest day I’ve had at work in a while. My patients were great, but they were all emotionally needy. I also took one of my patients for a walk outside, and we happened to walk past the ER, where we could see that there wasn’t an available chair in the waiting room. It was alarming. I gave all I had mentally to support my patients that day. I was drained. I found myself in tears as I drove home, simply digesting all of the pain I had absorbed that day.
I’m actually lucky as a healthcare provider. I work on call, not full time, so when I do get overwhelmed, I simply take a couple of days off to recharge. Many of my colleagues are not as lucky. The burnout is real, folks. No one is applauding us as heroes anymore. The signs in front of the hospital thanking us for our service are gone. No one brings our front line workers meals anymore. This work is ongoing, and we are forgotten.
Apathy is Happy That it Won Without a Fight
Maybe the real danger right now isn’t any of these threats. It’s actually apathy. If you think the pandemic isn’t your problem, if you think religious extremism isn’t your concern, or if you think our democracy will survive because it always has, you just might be wrong. If we all sit back and think that none of this affects us personally, so we don’t need to act, this is the real issue. If you aren’t trying to make things better, you are complicit in the problems, and this is how our nation will die.
So, what’s the panacea? I certainly don’t know. I think social media has been utilized to polarize our country. No one can seem to rationalize with the other side. Misinformation has been viciously spread via these avenues as well, fueling distrust in all sources of conventional wisdom. And as much as I love social media for connecting in positive ways to the running and vegan communities, it has worked equally well to disconnect, too. I definitely don’t have the answers. But I, as I’m certain most of you are, am tired of this new status quo.
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Some days, I really have to get my mind out of the pattern of thinking that the world as we know it is ending.Here’s to hoping that the life preservers work. If you’re sitting on the fence about saving our democracy, now is the time to act. If you aren’t yet vaccinated, boosted, or not still wearing masks when you are in public indoors, I beg you to change your mind. Apathy cannot win.
I wish my thoughts were in a better place these days. It’s challenging to remain upbeat right now. But this is where I’m at. Thank you for reading.
I’m lying in my bed. It’s night time. I’m awakened by the sounds of rain, pounding harder by the second on the roof and against my window, and then suddenly, that sound is punctuated by booming thunder and bright lightning. The thunder is so monstrous that it shakes my room. It’s accompanied by an equally terrifying, strong male voice, scolding me for being a bad girl, shaming me for things I never recalled being guilty of.
This was my recurring nightmare as a child. I would wake up screaming and crying. I’m sure I awakened my mother numerous times with this nonsense, although it certainly seemed real to me. These dreams were among my earliest memories. I was maybe 3 or 4 when these first began. I don’t recall exactly when this drama expired as a part of my serial reruns of nightmares, but I’m glad it did. But even now that I’m pushing 50, I still have nightmares that often feature loud booms of thunder; an enduring remnant of what once terrorized my childhood.
I once saw a counselor with whom I discussed these nightmares. She thought it was evidence that I was born with depression. Born with it. It’s one of the most damning summations of my life ever. Why, I wonder, would a 4 year old be burdened with that much shame? (Maybe she’s born with it. Maybe she’s a product of bad theology. )
A great book by pastor John Pavlovitz.
I’ve been reading the new book by John Pavlovitz, If God is Love, Don’t Be a Jerk. It has helped me connect lots of dots from my former church life. Reading part of his book, it suddenly hit me why I seemed born with shame; why my soul, from early childhood, was so troubled. It has roots in the church.
I really don’t recall what my early church leaders taught us exactly, but it’s clear by some evangelical teachings that many leaders believe that people are born inherently bad. It makes me think of the time I took my then 4 year old to a church festival in my neighborhood; they were making prayer bracelets as one of the activities. The instructor told her what all of the beads meant, one of which supposedly represented that she, my innocent 4 year old, was a bad person. (Yikes. There were lots of tears on her part, lots of damage control on mine.) Their interpretation is that we are born sinners who needed the salvation of Jesus to be made good again. Perhaps this was, in fact, the source of my childhood terror. All was not well with my soul, it seems, and the church was likely contributing to the cause. What a revelation.
The nightmare is not that humans are inherently bad. We are not wretches to be saved. The actual nightmare is that a religion dares to teach us that we are born terrible people, worthy only of disdain and punishment and eternal damnation except through salvation by the church.
I still subscribe to the notion that humans are born inherently good. In my quest for spiritual wellness, this is what I choose to believe. But right vs. wrong is not black and white. It’s many shades of gray. Now that I let go of the idea of hell and that there is an evil force waiting to snatch me from my bed, I can live my life more freely, even more morally and justly, guided simply by the concept that we should treat people the way we wish to be treated. I’m by no means perfect, but I’m a decent person. I can live with that.
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Now I wonder what else I was taught as a child by the church that was supposed to be good for me, but was actually harmful? Have you had any revelations about your religious upbringing? I’d love to hear about it.
I must also note that today marks the one year anniversary of the insurrection on our nation’s Capitol. Religion actually plays a huge role in the reason why our democracy is in danger. Let us not forget how fragile our democracy is and continues to be in America.
I actually have a few friends participating this year. What’s Veganuary, you ask? It’s a movement to get people to try eating vegan for the month of January. It’s a great way to ease into this lifestyle. Brian May, guitarist for Queen, did this last year, and he loved it so much, he never stopped. He joins an ever increasing list of famous vegans!
I have published a couple of blog posts about going vegan. One includes resources for more information about the vegan lifestyle, and the other is more about my journey specifically. I also wrote an article for the Richmond Road Runners Club Miles and Minutes magazine about plant based running.
My article in the summer issue of Miles and Minutes, 2021
So, what’s a trial vegan to do? How do you make it easy? For one, don’t feel guilty for using meat substitutes. I think it’s a great way to adapt to plant based without changing your routine too much. Beyond Meat and Gardein especially do a nice job with these types of products, and they are widely available in commercial grocery stores.
Speaking of grocery stores, I’ve done a whole series of tours of national chains, outlining what each one has to offer. Here’s the lineup:
For another way to make trying vegan foods easy, search out vegan restaurants in your area to explore creative meal options. The Happy Cow app can help you easily find places to go!
And lastly, if you are intimidated by foods like tofu, try a dish made with this at an Asian restaurant. These chefs know how to cook it well, and then you will know how good it can be! Vegan food does not have to be intimidating or complex, and can be accessible even on a low budget.
Some of my vegan items from my last trip to Trader Joe’s.
And here is an example of some of the vegan purchases I made on my last trip to Trader Joe’s. Not pictured? The Vegan Meatless Meat Lovers pizza, featuring plant based sausage, pepperoni, and cheese. It’s really good! For a quick meal, I ended up sauteing about half of each of the chopped veggie packs, adding a few diced baby potatoes and halved grape tomatoes plus a can of drained, rinsed great northern beans to the mix. I served it over rice with a scoop of TJ’s vegan tzatziki dip. It was so good!
I’ve also got a few vegan recipes on my blog. Here are a few of my favorites:
I hope you will check out some of my past posts and will find them helpful!
Truly, going vegan has helped me feel so much better overall. My skin looks better. I seem to recover faster from marathons (and ultras!). And I’m now off all medications to manage asthma, and I haven’t had full blown bronchitis since going vegan. But even more than for my health, I feel so much more compassion for all life, and I really feel good about doing my part to help the environment. I think to really be an environmentalist, you should be vegan. The industrial animal agriculture industry plays a major role in the destruction of our planet. The status quo is simply not sustainable. And I absolutely love that eating vegan helps me get creative in the kitchen!
If going vegan is a goal for you this year, I hope you do try it. And remember, there’s no such thing as a perfect vegan, so do what you can if you want to move toward this lifestyle. I’m here to help!
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Are you trying Veganuary? Are you already vegan? I’d love to hear about it!
My last post was about some of the good of 2021 for me: the fact that running continued, and that racing in person kind of returned. I managed to achieve some unexpected goals as well. But this post is not about the happy. It’s about the exhaustion.
If you want to sum up the culmination of the past couple of years and the evolution of all the terrible parts of society, go watch the new Netflix movie Don’t Look Up. So many of my friends are talking about this movie, so I felt like it was a must see. My daughter and I watched it last night.
I really thought it was going to be about climate change. I don’t know why I got this impression. However, it’s definitely more of a commentary on American culture, greed, science denial, and capitalism. It’s stunningly accurate. There are definitely lessons to be learned here, and the judgment is harsh. The ending left me speechless.
Looking back on 2021, it was not the year I expected to experience. I really felt hopeful that life would get back to normal once the vaccines debuted. I thought that a new President would quell some of the civil unrest in this country. I thought that we would begin to understand that climate change is real. I thought that our government would hear our cries for mercy and forgive student loan debt. I thought that our Supreme Court would rule rationally. I thought that our lower courts would help fight for social justice. None of these things really came to fruition.
On healthcare:
I naively thought everyone would rush to get the vaccine, and we would eradicate Covid. Instead, we’ve endured wave after wave of new variants, with each new surge in cases straining our hospitals and pushing your healthcare providers to the brink. There’s no experience quite like watching someone gasp for air, heart rate surging uncomfortably, with simply sitting up in bed, all due to Covid. There’s nothing like losing a beloved patient to Covid. There’s nothing like helping a patient who came to your rehab unit as a functional quad after battling Covid for weeks in the ICU learn how to walk again. We thought we were past the worst of the pandemic, but the surge is happening again. As our manager tearfully apologized for having to call some of our team members (including me) over the holiday weekend for being exposed once again to Covid at work, it feels like we are back to the beginning of this crisis all over again. Fortunately, I’m double vaxxed, boosted, and was wearing Covid ready PPE, so I was not considered at risk. But our cases are skyrocketing to numbers we haven’t seen since the initial waves. Now we are also trying to rationalize with patients who don’t believe the science. It’s crazy. And we are all exhausted. (Please get vaccinated.)
Current standard gear for the care of non-Covid patients in my hospital. I purchased my own goggles that have bifocal readers built in.
On politics:
I really thought the return to a more normal government would help unite the country and bring civility back. Instead, we got an insurrection and continued divisiveness. One only needs to take a drive around my rural Virginia county to see the propaganda. Signs declaring CRT poison. Flags and signs telling off our current President. I’ve even got a neighbor waving a plain black flag. I looked up what it meant, and it’s disturbing. But this is where we’re at in America, and it’s not pretty. It’s embarrassing.
On climate change:
We’ve seen an uptick in natural disasters, from fires to floods to multiple major hurricanes to massively destructive tornadoes in December. None of this is normal. We must trust science. We must do something now, or our children won’t have an earth to live on. Climate change isn’t something that’s happening somewhere else in the world. It really does affect everyone.
On education:
The student loan situation is a crime against meritocracy. We are fed the line of getting a good education so you can better yourself. Unfortunately, education has become ridiculously expensive. Cuts to public education have declined substantially on both the federal and state levels, beginning in the Nixon era, all while we expect schools to do more with less. It seems that education is an easy sacrifice when balancing the government budget. But sentencing someone who is already poor to crippling student debt is cruel. It’s just one more way to increase the divide between the haves and the have-nots. Student loan interest rates are often 3 times higher than current mortgage rates. Something has to change.
Our K-12 public school teachers are exhausted. They are not paid well enough to do what they do every day, even before the pandemic. (Go back to those budget cuts.) They managed to pivot instruction to online when asked. And now they are dealing with unrest in school board meetings, having to edit their classroom libraries, watch what truths they teach, teach their kids how to protect against school shooters, and manage a pandemic, too. It’s a wonder that we have any school teachers left.
My younger daughter is still in high school. There’s nothing quite like the conversation in the car on the way home that centers about all of the problem solving she has done with regard to how to either escape or hide from a potential school shooter in each of her classrooms. No child should have to waste critical thinking skills on this topic. No parent should have to fathom this possibility, either. Period.
On justice:
The new anti-abortion law in Texas, if you recall, left me in panic mode when I realized it would be allowed to stand. I’m not sure if the Supreme Court realizes the Pandora’s box that has been opened. Just to think about how many laws can be written to circumvent constitutional rights is maddening.
In the social justice realm, although I am thrilled that in Richmond, all of the confederate monuments have been removed, we’ve still got a long way to go in invoking real change. Some recent court rulings regarding violence against people of color have been favorable. However, the courts also approved of a teenage vigilante possessing an illegal assault weapon who committed murder. That’s not justice.
The empty pedestal for the Lee monument in Richmond. This is now in the process of being dismantled. Two time capsules have been discovered in the massive limestone support structure.
I know I sound like a Debbie Downer. But truthfully, I’m not too optimistic about 2022. I’m going in with very low expectations, and I hope to be surprised. I oscillate between wanting to exhaust myself trying to change the world for the better and wanting to stay in a cocoon, hidden and safe from all of the dangers in this world. I’ve noticed that I go through cycles of not watching or listening to the news for weeks at a time when I feel overwhelmed.
I think we can all agree that we’ve been collectively traumatized by this pandemic and all of the unrest that has accompanied it. It’s blatantly revealed the inequalities both in our country and around the world.
We must all do better, do more to make this world safer for everyone. We must vote. We must trust science. We must help our neighbors. We must address systemic issues that maintain the once comfortable status quo. It’s time to get uncomfortable. It’s time to help effect real change. We are on the brink of so much awful, and I feel like it’s almost out of our hands at this point. But we have to try to reign it in. We just have to.
Goodbye, 2021. Although there were many good things about this year for me, mostly related to running, writing, my kids persevering despite continued changes in school, and having steady work, I think most of us will agree, this year has left us exhausted.
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How do you feel about 2021? Are you as exhausted as me? It really has to get better, right? I’ll go back to pretending everything is fine at some point. But today, this is where I’m at.
Anne the Vegan 