by Mira Ptacin
Right now, that’s what I feel like. With each slap on the asphalt, my wet body tenses up like a cold rubber band. I want to stop and walk, walk it off just for a minute, but I can’t. I don’t have a good enough excuse to give Dad, or myself, because there isn’t one. The pain isn’t pain; it’s only annoying.
Around mile eighteen, the abundance of spectators thins out. The leftovers look lost, or apathetic, flaccidly clapping along the sidelines, bored. I glare at them, directing my frustration into their eyeballs, but Dad waves, practically cheering for them, trying to wake them up, trying to make a connection. Some are smoking. We run on.
By mile nineteen, what was left of the crowd has dissolved. The course is flat and unenthusiastic and framed by abandoned warehouses that look like dead crab shells, gray and empty. I ask my dad how his knee is doing—his problem knee, the one that swells often—but he just smiles and looks ahead of him. I know he is hurting. Our hair is soaked and our skin is crusted with the salt from our own bodies. The air is dry and nearly eighty-five degrees, and a ghostly army of legs hovers over the pavement ahead of us. At least five more miles left. When I think about this, it feels like it will take an eternity and seems like an impossibility. With each stomp of my feet on the hot asphalt, a fiery bolt cracks through my body. I feel it underneath my skin, my muscles, all the way to my bones—starting with my ankles, then my shins, then my pelvis, all the way up to my neck. I can’t talk. I don’t want to smile. I need to stop. I hate this. I have broken a bone in my foot. My arms are falling off. I’ve pooped my pants. My hair is falling out. I’m bleeding. I’m dying. And just as I am about to quit, to tell Dad that this is fucking bullshit and I need to stop, he raises his hands and shouts.
“I love this sun! I love this heat!” His hands are cupped and pointing toward the sky. “I’m so happy to be getting my vitamin D fix!”
I stare at the ground. The pavement is littered with empty, green paper cups, making it slippery but reminding me that there are people ahead, people who are finishing. I shuffle along. I try to close my eyes, but someone jumps in front of me. A lavender jumpsuit. Short and skippy, there she is. Little Warsaw, my mother. She runs toward us, holding her fists in the air and rolling them, bouncing and yipping, practically popping, and for the first time, Dad stops. He bends down and kisses his wife. I tap my mother’s behind and keep shuffling, knowing if I stop, I won’t be able to start again; I have to keep moving. I see my sister. Next to Sabina is my Uncle Matteo, then his ex-wife Mary, then Dad’s sisters, Aunt Mary Madeleine and Aunt Mary Joan, their husbands and their children. There is Dad’s brother Brogan and his wife Ann, and all my cousins and everyone I didn’t know would be here, smiling and clapping and laughing and crying and telling us to keep going, keep going, you’re doing it, you’re doing it. And then Andrew runs into the street, kisses me, and peels off. I can’t keep up with my father.
Good grief. The words are so short and simple, but the road to get here was not. Sorrow. Grief. The stages aren’t a checklist. There is no deadline. Grief is unpredictable. Messy. Imagine: You are in the driver’s seat. You are with your child. You are asking about homework or talking about the dog and suddenly your entire life gets flipped upside down. There is a crash, broken glass, and then your son expires right in your arms. You are carrying your child and then he dies. How do you go on after that? You become weighed down by sorrow. By denial, anger, bargaining, depression. When does acceptance come? You want your grief to be temporary, predictable. You want to see the stages of grief and identify with them, check them off, but grief never ends. Maybe you expect a time limit where you can put it behind you and go on with your life, but how can you? You just do. Because the grief narrative never ends; it has become woven in, part of the braid of your life. After that last green bean casserole, the world moves on, but you cannot, and that is not wrong. To continue to grieve does not mean you’re doing something incorrectly. The question isn’t: When will I stop grieving? The question is: How do you keep on living? And I believe the answer is: You accept your sadness. You sink into it. Dad says you do this: You put one foot in front of the other and you go on. You run. You live.
After the race, Andrew and I will fly back to New York, and shortly after, we will rent a Uhaul, pack up our belongings and our dogs, and we will leave. We will drive and we will keep driving. We will pass interstate rest stops, pine trees, moose-crossing signs. We’ll pass steeples and public suppers. We will cross Commercial Street and drive our car onto the Casco Bay Lines ferry and motor across Portland Harbor until we reach our little sanctuary on Peaks Island, Maine. Population: 800. I will feel a flutter in my stomach, and know that it is the kicking of a baby, whom I will deliver a few months later. A baby boy. Theo Julian. Ten pounds, twenty-two inches. My joy.
But right now, it is just us. Team Good Grief. My father and me and the home stretch. The twenty-fifth mile.
The sidewalks are again full of people. Hundreds of them, but they’re silent. They’re not shrieking and whooping. They aren’t disinterested or unimpressed, either. They’re just observing. Standing there, silently looking at these running people, these lunatics, thousands of them who, for some reason, decided to go out and do this. Why would they punish themselves like that? Put their bodies through some kind of torture—why? Thousands of them, just running, and now these maniacs are floating by and approaching their end.
For several strides I watch the faces of the spectators watching us. Their eyes all have the same ambivalent expression. Worn yet hopeful, humbled and petrified, as if a tidal wave were approaching. Looking forward, I see what they see: that moment right before the runners turn the corner and disappear. It’s as if we are witnessing the moment right before a person lets go, dies, enters heaven. We run that way, too.
Ahead of us, a right turn and then a sign. Zero point two miles to go. A steep peak over a bridge and, at the top, a sharp left. That’s when we see it: the finish. The end of the line. On their own, our legs pick up speed and my father grabs my hand.
“This is it,” he says, and we take off.
To me, it is a shock and a lift. I become numb. My thoughts are made clear, not like I’m a human being. Like I’m a spirit, and I just go. I run.
acknowledgments
First and foremost, I thank my parents, Philip and Maria Ptacin. You nourished my strengths, set me straight, and continue to demonstrate how simple it is to honor the world, to find beauty in all moments and people in life.
All my gratitude goes my champions at Soho Press: Bronwen Hruska, Abby Koski, Meredith Barnes, Rudy Martinez, Rachel Kowal, Janine Agro, Amara Hoshijo, Jon Fine, and especially to my editor, Mark Doten, whose insight, empathy, and confidence not only gave life to Poor Your Soul, but made it better.
Oh, what’s that? Hello there, Celia Blue Johnson. Without you, my manuscript would still be collecting dust, I’d still be questioning my ability and worth as a writer, and this reader wouldn’t be reading this book. My forever thanks.
There were a handful of optimistic midwives during the earliest stages of Poor Your Soul whose encouragement I haven’t forgotten: Amanda Angelo, Jason Roberts, Suzanne Hoover, Vijay Seshadri, Lisa Grubka, Cheryl Pientka, Lisa Bankoff, Kendra Harpster, Ellen O’Connell, Allison Devers, Michelle Koufopoulus, Penina Roth, Victoria Comella, Tom Englehardt, Michael Ptacin, Kassi Underwood, Dr. Laura Mazikowski, Elissa Bassist, Jason Diamond, Molly Rose Quinn, Liza Monroy, Kate Hurley, Olga and Jenn, Chelsea and Rebecca, and Cathrin Wirtz. To Roxane Gay and Allison Wright for pushing me to aim higher, even when it hurt. A huge hug to my giant family at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies, especially Donna Galluzzo. Donna: thank you for the tough love, endless faith, and for advising me on how to create a healthy and honorable foundation of what I now see was the beginning of my adult life. And a quick kiss to superwoman Kelli Schuit and dear Velvet Young taking loving care of Theo (and the pups) so that I could finish this book.
Thank y
ou peanut butter chocolate ice cream.
Thank you to the Writers’ Room and to the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, where this manuscript took shape and continued to grow. To all my dear friends at Guernica Magazine and The Rumpus: I’m grateful for your continuous encouragement and support, in so many ways.
To my aunts Claire Ott, Mary Piergies and Mary Joan Ptacin for always insisting for years that I was a writer, and that was a good thing. To my magnificent sister Sabina Ptacin-Hitchen (and Alex and George-Michael) for not letting me make excuses, and for making me go on that first date with Andrew. And the Jackson family, for accepting me immediately and loving me continuously.
I am most thankful to and for my own little family, starting with Huckleberry and Maybe, two jolly spirits who kept me company, kept me sane, and got me out of the house when I couldn’t leave my desk (or sometimes my bed). My son Theo: You are my joy and greatest purpose. By making me a mother, you brought forth the strongest and purest part of me I never knew existed. And finally, my unending gratitude and respect goes to the best man I will ever meet, know, and love: my honorable and brilliant husband Andrew. You’re beautiful. I would never have come out of the dark and gone this far without you by my side. I thank you.