On Feeling Alive... — My Father's List

“Go where you feel most alive.” —John Muir

I’m soon to be a published author. It was hard keeping it a secret for so long, but in the past two years, during the pandemic, I was working with a literary agent to get my book proposal ready and out there. Post Hill Press, an indie distributed by Simon & Schuster, is publishing my book on July 11 next year…soon after my seventh wedding anniversary (not my choice, my editor’s, but it’s perfect—I’ve always viewed my dad’s list as a wedding present).

I now have nine items left on the list. I’ve been posting every few days on Instagram about my solo trip to Berlin, Dresden and Vienna (I managed to sneak Salzburg in, too), and my research about those places has preoccupied me the past few months. I had no idea what an origin of literature and art Germany and Austria were, and the research has been helping with my next list item, “correspond with the Pope,” as so much of what we understand about modern Christianity comes from these places.

This week I am abandoning studying the Germanic tribes in favor of pursuing writing the remaining chapters, and doing nothing else—except training for the half Ironman I’m doing in September.

Some of you might remember, I got this idea back in 2018. When I switched to a plant-based diet, like my husband’s, I resolved I would complete an Ironman vegan, because nobody thought that was possible.

Those plans had to be altered slightly…..first I got injured doing the tennis list item (which is being finished this summer! I’ve already beaten my husband Steven, the “number-one seed,” in one set), then I needed foot surgery, then I couldn’t run for a few months, then I could only run 5Ks, and then I finally rebuilt my strength when we ran every street in our town at the start of the pandemic. But in 2021, I officially began competing in triathlons. First an olympic tri, which I DNFed (I wrote an essay about it for Run Tri Mag here); then a sprint tri in Atlantic City, NJ, in which I was the second-to-last person to cross the finish line, but I finished; then an olympic tri in Annapolis, MD, in which I was definitely the last person to finish, but again, I finished; and then my first half Ironman, in Florida in December, where it ended up being 90 degrees instead of 70 and I was too slow on the cycling portion and at 42 miles, they pulled me off the course. More on that in my next essay for Run Tri Mag (I’m chronicling my vegan Ironman for them).

So now, I am training once again. I’ve even turned it into a list item—”own a $200 suit” (a triathlon suit!). I just finished my first sprint tri of the season—one Steven and I created for our wedding anniversary! This weekend, we’ll run a 10K in Pennsylvania, and then my next race is the NYC Tri in July. Swimming in the Hudson!

The Atlantic City tri finish line….this is also where the Ironman 70.3 will finish

If you think it sounds like I’m doing a lot…well, you’re right. But I’m only doing what I’ve been doing all along…. This is just the big hurrah. The big finale. When I cross that finish line in Atlantic City in September I’ll be close to crossing my list and book finish lines, too. Somehow, they all go together.

Why I care about doing the Ironman vegan: Back when I was a baby distracted driving activist, I learned a loved one still texted when he drove. I asked my husband, how can this happen? I’ve worked so hard to educate…and I’ve done so on a national level. I didn’t understand how a person could do so much to educate strangers about something, and yet a loved one would still engage in it.

Steven explained that he, too, had worked hard to educate people about what happens to animals who are killed for food. And yet, I still ate them.

I realized that it didn’t matter how much I tried to educate about something if the person engaging in it does it out of convenience. Or because everyone else seems to do it, too.

We are all learning more and more in this country that there are plenty of things people do that maybe are not the most healthy things, maybe even disregard human lives…and yet they continue to do it because it seems to them everyone else is doing it.

My activism changed after that. I stopped imploring people to drive more safely. Instead I strove to be an example. Now I know I am always doing what I believe, and if I don’t know enough about what I’m doing, I take the time to learn about it, to make sure I am making a choice I believe in.

That’s what the whole list has been—one long journey of learning how to think. How to brush aside other people’s ideas or assumptions about my life, about what the “normal” thing is to do, and pursuing instead the path I am called to.

Sometimes it’s still very hard. This path I’ve followed requires so much of me. Not only my time and energy and mind but also physical endurance and faith and more than anything, my heart. I have to go through life open, and un-numbed, to make this list work. Because you never know what strange surprise might help you check off a list item.

It’s been particularly hard these past two years to be like that—un-numbed. But I highly recommend it.

When you feel everything that comes your way—and I mean EVERYTHING—you get good at discerning what is for you and what isn’t. You choose what to focus on, and dedicate yourself to that…knowing you cannot work on all of the world’s problems, but at the very least, you can work on what you were put here to do.

Nine more items. Almost there.

Photo of the High Sierras Wilderness by sonjasaxe.com. When John Muir said, “The mountains are calling, and I must go,” it was THESE mountains.

In August, I have one aid station—a trip out to the High Sierras with my cousin who’s helping me “have five songs recorded” to climb the tallest mountain in the lower 48. It’s going to be epic, life-changing—and something I never would have done had I not decided to finish my father’s list.

It’s going to make me feel alive.

PS: I have so many other things going on that I forgot to mention—three new podcasts (see my Media page), a fundraiser for Girls on the Run for my Ironman that I’ll announce soon, and MY DAD’S BOOK!! I just put the finishing touches on copyediting the book of essays my dad wrote in 1978, “The Why Generation in a Why Not World,” the one Steven redesigned as my Christmas present. It will be available soon for purchase on Amazon, and all proceeds will go to a charitable fund I’m starting in my dad’s name (also a list item!). AND….I found a place to plant one of my apple trees in October. And oh boy, is it a good one….