Counting by 7s(51)

I don’t normally use words like terrific, so maybe Mai will understand that I have my concerns.

But she doesn’t pick up on it.

Our first day of running is tomorrow.



When I get home I work with Quang-ha on his biology.

I give him a single-page document with a distillation of what he should know for his upcoming test. I try to come up with little tricks to help him remember things.

I think it’s possible that I have natural teaching ability.

I’m not boasting.

I’m just presenting the facts.

He’s starting to exhibit a degree of understanding.

He tried to hide a recent pop-quiz from me, but I found it in his notebook.

He got 91/100. The teacher wrote a note at the top:

Your new effort is paying off!

I’m certain the last thing Quang-ha wants is to be some kind of biologist, but it’s good to see he’s not getting sent to the office for threatening to burn people with lab equipment.

All of this leads me toward my own expansion.

I go online and devise a running plan. I show Mai and she appears to be interested.

She says we will go as soon as Dell gets here because he wants to come with us.

I have charted out a one-mile loop that travels eight blocks south of the Gardens of Glenwood.

It then turns three blocks west.

Followed by eight blocks north.

And finally three blocks east.

On the map, it does not look like much.



I’m lucky to still be alive.

After two blocks on the course, I get a pain in my left side that feels as if a knife has been implanted just below rib 7 (individual ribs do not have names, and are only referred to as one through twelve, left side, right side).

My legs—or more specifically, my calves—tingle, and somehow I have lost all of my strength.

My ankles freeze up.

The air around me turns thick.

I experience so many different health conditions—rapid heart rate, elevated blood pressure, dry mouth, pulmonary shock, muscle spasm—that it is impossible for me to even chronicle the degree of body breakdown.

The shocking truth is that I cannot even continuously jog eight blocks south (which was the first segment of the run).

At the sixth block I stumble.

I feel that I might lose consciousness (and there is no metal elephant coffee table to break my fall).

Mai places her hand on my arm and says:

“Take it easy. Just breathe, Willow.”

I know it sounds crazy, but as I work to control my wheezing breathing pattern, something happens.

I go from light-headed to feeling grateful for the gift of life.

It must be some kind of blood pressure phenomenon.

Dell and Mai walk with me back to the Gardens of Glenwood.

I want one of them to tell me that I’ll get better at this. But they don’t.

As we enter the apartment complex I say:

“I’m going to try again tomorrow.”

I see Mai and Dell exchange looks of concern.

In that instant I decide that I will exercise (time permitting) each afternoon for the rest of my life.

Maybe I’m more competitive than I thought.



I’m very sore from jogging every day this week.

Except for day four, when I suffered some kind of setback and had to walk the whole mile, almost on my hands and knees, I know that I’ve made progress.

But I believe it is fair to say that I will never be very good at running.

Here is an even larger truth: I am not in any way a natural when it comes to body movement.

It is in this moment of clarity that I understand that I have never danced.

I know that I was forced to do some kind of folk steps to music in fourth grade, and I now realize that I was tragically uncoordinated even at that.

It’s funny how I’d blocked the experience out of my mind.

In order to successfully transition from twelve years old to being a teenager and then to an adult, will I need to be able to move my hips to a song?

I’m sweating just thinking about that.

That’s why this running matters.

I think that the effort put forward in matters of physical exertion is more important than the outcome.

And I’m not just saying that because gym teachers have told me this in the past.

A new reality is emerging.

I actually like my pink-and-purple flamingo shoes.

So maybe the jarring movement of jogging is clouding my judgment.

Even though my exercise regime only takes sixteen minutes, I find that I’m thinking about it when I’m not doing it.

I know that vigorous exercise changes brain chemistry.

In my current situation, there is nothing more I could ask for.





Chapter 46





I’m on my way to the laundry room when I look under the lava rock in the courtyard.

I push away a small section of the heap of surprisingly dirty red stones and then peel back a corner of the torn plastic liner.

As suspected (because of the appearance of the weeds), there is dirt under there.

For the briefest of moments I imagine clearing away the rock and digging a pond to grow water lilies and red bog flowers.

I would plant timber bamboo along the north side to jut up into the open space and shade the roof. I suddenly see vines and lush plants clumped together, and the air is pungent with the smell of life.