Matthew Gallaway

Life Is Short Running Is Long

I live about two miles from Fort Tryon Park, which means that -- depending on which way I go -- I either get there after two miles or eleven. In either case, it's a relief. Running down into the center of the park is to enter a state of reflection that I find increasingly difficult to attain anywhere else. So much of life in the city is spent in a demoralizing crush of traffic (vehicular and pedestrian) and security measures. Getting anywhere is a tedious ordeal, which makes the occasional arrival at a place like this park seem all the more miraculous.   Is it necessary to suffer to appreciate the better things the world has to offer? I hope not, but I do know that I'm again excited about running lately, which offers much at both ends of the spectrum. (Welcome to my running blog: you've been warned.)In the abstract -- when you're not doing it -- running seems mostly dreadworthy. It takes a lot of time, it makes your legs hurt even when you're relatively injury-free, and it demonstrates in crushingly empirical terms the inescapable effects of aging. You get older and you get slower: sad! But if you can make yourself put on the shoes and force yourself out the door (even if it's raining), and you can do it for a few weeks or months or however long it takes so that you can go out and "pound" eight or ten miles, there's nothing quite like it. And by "pound," I mean running fast enough so that you think you're going to die if you don't slow down, but at the same time you feel incapable of slowing down, which is the paradox of running (and maybe life). (For me this used to mean six-minute miles, but now it's closer to seven: the pace is completely subjective to what I'm describing, however.) The pain in not an injury-level pain but a constant soreness or fatigue that nevertheless for a few miles retreats, almost like a tide, as your legs keep turning over, hitting the ground hard and pushing you forward. Which -- if you can get to this point -- is how you know you're in good physical shape. I'm not sure I'm quite there yet, but I'm closer than I've been in a long time, which I'm happy about. And now that I'm older, I'm more interested in the mental process that accompanies this kind of physical training. Let me be the ten billionth person to point out that, as life goes on, time seems to accelerate. We become habitual by force and desire; days evaporate along with weeks and months and the passage of seasons (both weather and television). But there are things we can do to step outside of this constant churn: in my case, one is opera, which never feels like it's rushing by, but (assuming it's a reasonably good show, and I've been blessed in this regard) doesn't feel boring, like sitting through a three-hour training session at work or watching an episode of some overrated show on Netflix like Stranger Things or Jessica Jones or House of Cards or Sense8 or Bloodlines or Goliath or -- especially -- the new season of Black Mirror, when after it's done you're like "omg I will never get that hour of my life back again :( "  Stephen once had a friend who gave us t-shirts that said: "Life is short, opera is long," which I didn't really understand until recently. For me, the same could be said about running. It gives me access to a world without FB or politics or homophobia, a place where my thoughts feel somehow sharp-edged and syrupy at the same time. A place where nothing gets done but anything seems feasible.  A place where you are completely alone but -- as soon as you reach the park -- you feel "connected" to everything: the flowers, the glowing trees, the mist. I find it shocking to think that I've been running for more than forty years. Running is my oldest friend.  Seriously, how is the passage of time even possible? Fortunately (for me), to run is know there are a few times in life when it's not.

The George Washington Bridge Project: Life Above a Canopy of Orange, Red and Yellow

Running in the fall is one of the best times to run. It's usually not too hot and not too cold, and the changing leaves create an otherworldly effect that's pleasantly distracting when you're otherwise dying from going too far and/or too fast. Or not far or fast enough. After I finished my second marathon about twenty years ago, I vowed that I would never race again. Those last ten miles were just too painful, and even the blur of the November leaves didn't help. But recently a friend from my high school cross-country running team proposed that we all meet in New Orleans (where he lives) and race a half marathon. Thirteen miles isn't exactly easy, but it isn't anywhere in the soul-crushing realm of a full marathon. Could I do it?So after offering a few excuses about why I couldn't, I decided to stop being a baby and commit/register.   This will probably be the least surprising thing ever, but it's actually fun to train again with a concrete goal in mind. It gives running a purpose beyond exercise and having a purpose means that you can run a little bit faster and smoother, which is honestly a great feeling if you can get there. (So far I'm more 'on the cusp' but it's enough.) Of course it's a little shocking to realize how much slower I am at (almost) fifty than I was at thirty, but I'm also more patient, meaning I'm more willing and able to follow a regimen instead of just "winging it" the way I used to do. I mean, I didn't completely wing it, because I put in the miles, but now I can see (and feel) the benefits of more structured speed and strength training. (I'm sorry this has turned into a running blog this week!) I'm also learning that "core strength" is also important to running, which isn't something I ever paid attention to when I was running competitively. Even a few years ago, I remember hearing someone talking about "engaging your core" and I was like, 'wtf is a core.' But now I'm engaging my core, and my hamstrings -- which for a while were really bugging me -- feel a lot better. Along with my knee and my hip and some other stuff, all of which has miraculously gone away, thanks to 'core training.' One thing I don't like is running with my phone in my pocket, but I try to do it at least once a week, so that I can remember the paths through the park and leading down to the river, especially now that they're bordered by such amazing colors.  In non-running news, we bought some mums to give the garden some fall color, which is cheating in a way, but still effective. The cats still love their daily walk. This is where we found Clio eighteen months ago, about to have six kittens. Everyone has memories. We didn't transplant the mums but placed them in terra cotta pots so that they would fool Dante, who can't abide plastic.  "I remember being a kitten in this garden, too." -- Dante"I remember the day I finally crossed the Hudson and became the busiest bridge in the world." -- The George Washington Bridge

There Is a Third Group of People in Our Society Who Deserve Ongoing Scrutiny for Their Words and Actions

One of the nice things about going for a run in the morning -- as I've been doing lately -- is that you get to experience the best light the day has to offer. And now that it's October, the light is even better, because it's more angled and diffuse. Plus nobody else was running around the perimeter of the cemetery doing hill workouts, the way I was :) Trinity Church needs to invest some money in cleaning up this beautiful wrought-iron fencing, but in the morning light, the rust makes the gates look even more beautiful than if they were freshly painted. (Maybe.) One of my lottery fantasies to buy a big crypt in Trinity Church Cemetery so that I -- along with Stephen and the cats (and the Astors and many of New York's other most illustrious families) -- could spend eternity watching the Hudson. (I definitely want to be cremated, though, so we would be watching in ash form.) This fantasy took one step closer to reality a few weeks ago when New York State passed legislation allowing pets to be buried in human cemeteries. Unfortunately, a crypt in Trinity Church Cemetery probably costs millions, so I'm not sure how likely this scenario will be. Check back in fifty years and I'll probably know more! With the election campaign in full swing, we've been talking a lot about the state of our country. Clio is only two years old, so she's curious about how things work. (Although having lived on the streets and given birth to six kittens, she's not oblivious to its miracles or its cruelties.) I think it's interesting -- and encouraging -- that there seems to be a growing consensus that the following groups of people are pretty much the worst: 1) white people, and 2) men. Both groups so often pass through life in a bubble, completely unaware of how society offers them (or, in my case, us, for I'm a member of both groups) every possible advantage in terms of school, housing, jobs, not getting killed by police, not getting certain diseases, and so forth. When you turn on the television or go to the movies, you never lack for characters who are male and white. As a white male, I find this state of affairs depressing. The same boring stories get told over and over with white men in the starring roles. Usually they/we are the heroes. Sometimes we are the antiheroes. Television is a reflection of the fact that, for the most part, white men run our country: they/we hold the vast majority of elected offices and sit on the most corporate boards. We have so much more money than anyone else: it's embarrassing if you're a white man, or at least it should be. If you were arriving from outer space and seeing our country for the first time, you would probably ask yourself: "What did these white men do to deserve so much, and why isn't anyone protesting?" And you might take note of social-reform movements like Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street and think that change is in the works, if not exactly imminent, because it's not like white men are going to give up even a single penny without throwing a huge temper tantrum, as DT has made clear over the past year of his campaign. And you might even be encouraged by the way women and their allies have recently taken offense at so many of DT's comments, although you might be mystified by the way so many of the white men taking umbrage at DT are the same ones who for the past three decades have enacted really punishing legislation that has destroyed the ability of many women -- and especially those without money -- to take care of their bodies and feed themselves and their children in a manner befitting the wealthiest country the world has ever seen.  What I've been thinking about lately, however, in addition to the above, is that there's a third group who are less frequently acknowledged but who are also quite literally the worst, and this group is 3) straight people. I'm not saying that every straight person is quite literally the worst, of course, but if you're straight and you want to "end the cycle" of oblivious privilege and discrimination that's tearing our country apart, then you have a responsibility to educate yourself about your privilege and understand why it's so toxic, not only to those who do not share it, but -- again -- to the civilized functioning of our country, which is in all of our best interests, assuming you believe in the ideal of peaceful, sustainable coexistence.This means, if you identify as a straight man, that you stop beating up and murdering people who are gay. (Obviously.) But it also means that you stop making disparaging comments about people who are not straight, even when you're in a locker room and assume that everyone in your immediate vicinity also identifies as a straight man. I've spent almost five decades going in and out of locker rooms and can assure you that the comments made about gays -- and especially gay men -- are no more appetizing that what's said about women; the comments are also not infrequent in my experience, in contrast to the recent framing of DT as some kind of 'lone wolf,' which is in no way an attempt to defend him. And if you identify as a straight woman, it means that you don't get to call everyone you hate on the subway train a "faggot." It means that you don't get to stereotype and objectify the gay people you meet by, for example, asking them if someone else is gay (based on his or her appearance) or bemoaning your sense of design to your gay male friend with the implication that because he's gay he understands colors better than you do or "knows how to dress." And it means you don't get to say that you dislike a television show or book because it's "too gay" simply because it's in the one-percent of televisions shows or book that has more than one gay character. You can say you don't like the show because the dialogue is bad or the characters don't seem believable to you, but "too gay" is not an option, not even as a joke. (Only gay people get to make that joke.) You don't get to squirm when you see two gay people kissing or even fucking, because -- trust me -- we gays have had to endure straight sex for our entire lives, and we're so over it. Recently Stephen and I -- during the television desert before the start of the fall -- watched all seven seasons of Gilmore Girls, and while for the most part I found the show charming and witty in the tradition of charming/witty "dramadies" like MTM (<3), and I could understand why (leaving troubling food-disorder/body-image issues aside) it remains so beloved, I was regularly dismayed by 1) the complete absence of any openly gay characters on the show (like not even one), 2) the intermittent reliance on the word "gay" (as a synonym for "stupid") and gay stereotypes for laughs -- "don't choose purple or you don't know what people will think," etc., etc., particularly by Lorelai, and 3) the hyper-masculinity of men like Luke, who is so afraid to appear "effeminate" (read "gay") that he won't even admit that he likes listening to music; when April (his excruciatingly annoying daughter) gives him a silver bracelet, he cringes when he tries it on. The implicit message being: what would people say if they saw me in a bracelet? And so on and so forth. On one hand, you might argue, "well the show is ten years old, who gives a fuck?" but in the recent promotional campaigns for the new season, we see a list of rules for Luke's Diner, one of which is "no man buns." Which, if you care about being part of Group 3, is not a joke you get to make. In one of the last episodes, Lorelai bemoans the fact that she's incapable of finding a relationship partner who can express his feelings, which is sad and ironic given that she has spent seven seasons inhibiting the expression of feelings in men she finds attractive. From what I can see, this sickness -- and it is a sickness -- continues to infect our entire society and will not end until Group 3 starts a collective course of self-analysis, recovery, and education. Based on the real paucity of gay characters on television (and in mainstream books and movies), we still have a lonnnnnnnng way to go. If you're a part of Group 3 and you're not actively working to change this situation, you're hurting yourself. Over the years, I've met so many people who belong to Group 3 and are completely oblivious to what it means for those of us who do not belong. The same goes for other groups, also, but there are ways to understand. For example, if you're white, have you ever walked through a non-white neighborhood? (And not in a group, so that you are 'exposed' and 'vulnerable'?) Have you lived in one? Do you understand what it means to feel like everyone is looking at you -- scrutinizing and judging you -- merely because of who you are, even though you're not doing anything wrong? (And even if probably nobody is really paying attention to you?) Or if you're a straight person, have you ever been to a gay bar or a club (again, by yourself)? Did you feel awkward or uncomfortable, like you might say the wrong thing or make the wrong gesture? And as a result you didn't really want to interact with these people because you feel like, on some very important level, they didn't understand you? And might even judge you? Because that's what it's like being gay in a straight society every single day. (Or -- I have to imagine -- being non-white or non-male.) This is how the seeds of fear and mistrust (and, sometimes, violence) have been planted. If you belong to one of the three aforementioned groups, you have a responsibility to pull these weeds out. Non-Clio and non-Trinity Church Cemetery shots taken in Fort Tryon Park, October 13, 2016.
 

Fort Tryon Park, October 8, 2016 (Election Notes)

Any time of day is a good time to go running (or walking) through Fort Tryon Park, but lately I've been going in the mornings, when the park is relatively empty and you can best appreciate the rooftop views of the Bronx, just across the East River. The Bronx -- like its close cousin, Washington Heights -- is changing these days. Money for new development is pouring in, property values are on the rise, and residents are either embracing or resisting this change, depending on many factors, with property ownership -- i.e., do you own or do you rent? -- often (but not always) being the most important. While people may have opposing views on gentrification, these skirmishes are largely irrelevant in the bigger battle playing out, which can loosely be defined as the city versus the non-city. The city has already won the battle, which is perhaps surprising given that many observers predicted that events such as 9/11 would derail the urban resurgence. I remember skimming through an op-ed to this effect in the Wall Street Journal not long after 9/11 in which the writer predicted a new exodus from cities around the country and a corresponding boom in suburban development, similar to what happened in the wake of WWII, when soldiers came home from overseas and were enticed to move into the suburbs by misguided government programs emphasizing single-family home ownership and highway development.
Implicit in this dream of renewed suburban growth is nostalgia for a more conventional or "traditional" past, when the United States -- and especially the suburbs -- were whiter, straighter, and more religious in the organized sense of the word. The suburbs fostered "community" among people who looked and acted -- at least on the surface -- the same. The cities, home to deviants and outcasts, fostered loneliness, anonymity, and random crime. Except it hasn't turned out that way. The suburbs -- as a big percentage of those of us who grew up there know firsthand -- are an expensive wasteland. You have to drive everywhere and taxes are brutal, because there aren't enough businesses to support a sufficient tax base to provide basic services. Houses fall apart and are expensive to maintain in comparison to apartment buildings. It seems like every other podcast I listen to these days has a story on drug addiction in the suburbs. Recently I heard a report on Trump supporters in Suffolk County (on suburban Long Island) and the guy was like "Can you believe we have more heroin addicts here than in the Bronx?" I could totally believe it. Meanwhile, an 85 y.o. woman was in tears as she described using her Social Security check to pay the property taxes on her small house where she had lived for forty years. It was heartbreaking.What's unfortunate is that cities do not yet have the political clout to transform national politics; both candidates argue as if the suburban dream can be brought back from the dead (one candidate is obviously much worse than the other, even though he grew up in NYC), when such a dream is unsustainable on so many levels. What they should be talking about is how to make our cities -- the key to a sustainable future -- more egalitarian; unconstrained, cities -- like the capitalist system from which they arise -- tend to aggregate too much money in the hands of too few, which leads to political instability at every level. (The solution to this problem is not complicated, but the political will power is not yet there.)

As I ran through Fort Tryon Park, the election felt very far away. It didn't feel unimportant, but it also didn't seem as critical as so much of the media would have us think. "I was going to vote for Trump until I learned what he said about 'grabbing pussy.' " -- nobody except the insane Republican politicians who have yet to acknowledge how their policies for the last fifty years (against women, gays, ethnic minorities, the environment, cities, and so much more) created DT. 
The flowers leaned toward the rising sun. The horizon began to glow through the mists.The path was clear; the only question was when we would take it.

 

The Early Autumn Report

The first days of fall managed to be damp and dreary. It wasn't exactly "sweater weather" yet -- I was still running in shorts and a t-shirt -- but it wasn't punishingly hot, the way it had been earlier in the month. A friend from law school who lives uptown with his legal same-gender partner wrote to ask if I had any recommendations for a professional exterminator to deal with a mouse problem. As I knew from experience in our house, fall is when mice -- even in Manhattan -- will try to scurry indoors to set up camp for the winter. I told him that I did have a professional exterminator and sent the below pictures. "My name is Zephyr and I will handle all of your mice problems." "My name is Clio and I, too, am happy to assist with mice problems." "Mice are for amateurs, but you can keep me in mind if you have an issue with flying snakes." -- Elektra "I'm retired." -- Dante (in back) After dropping the exterminators off to do their work,* I ventured out into the rain to attend a performance of Tristan and Isolde at the Metropolitan Opera.**

*I didn't actually do this

** I actually did do this It seemed hard to believe that I had seen my first Tristan more than fifteen years ago. Like an opera queen, I felt nostalgic about productions from the past and skeptical that anything new could measure up. Maria and I reminisced about old times. The lights swirled and eventually dimmed. As it turned out, I wasn't disappointed in the least. The music, as it always did, took us to another world, better than our own.