Run

We become increasingly rule bound as we grow older. That's why you can't teach old dogs new tricks. To overcome the trait, we must unlearn what we know and start over. 

And I've noticed my running style isn't the right way to go. As I read more about the topic, I have (somewhat begrudgingly) accepted I'll need core strength training. When it comes to static stretching after a run, I have never paid attention to this simple but proven routine – not even close. I simply press the pause button for the Strava tracking app and that's it. 

Instead of simply running a bit farther, or faster for that matter, I have to prepare my body better. I learned a hard lesson during my run tonight, when I encountered two aggressive dogs in a dark alley. Overwhelmed by the fear, I simply ran faster as the dogs barked and chased me. When their owners thought the leash laws don't apply to their animals, I had an even more stupid concept that I should speed up. The faster I ran, the more speedy the dogs were after me.

I ran and ran, working my ass off to save my ass.

Memoir

When Ashley Ford was four and living with her single mum, brother, and grandmother, she taught herself to lie awake until morning because she wanted the sunrise. We learned about her backyard story in her memoir, Somebody's Daughter.

Ashley had little idea of whereabouts of her absent father (who was jailed) and dared not ask her mother why her father was in prison (because he raped two women). She moved out from the home in Brooklyn, where her mother was living with her boyfriend. She didn't want to ruin their relationship but part of her wished to tell her, "Mama, I love you, but I'll work myself past the white meat, down to the bone, and fistfight every stranger I run across on the street before we live under the same roof again."

For many years, Ashley didn't write back to her father in prison. And she didn't live under her mother's roof for seven years. She went back seven years later, when her mother nearly died after a ruptured appendix. She wasn't ready to become an adult orphan. Out of the fear of becoming parentless, she looked at her mom's dark-gray face lit up by the dead-white hospital room and came close to remember her promise to visit her dad. 

The drive to the prison (about an hour and a half) was far shorter than the wait for her father to reunite with her – alas, that's thirteen years.

Ashley Ford's forthright disclosure is a powerful and heart-wrenching self-portrayal as a poor Black daughter in a fragmented family. If I'd learned anything from her, it was the lesson not to hide from our emotions, not to suppress them, and not to shy away from them.