A few Sundays ago, I finished the Oakland Half Marathon.  I was and continue to be absolutely elated.

My journey back to running began a few months ago when one of my best friends suggested that we run a half-marathon together.  I said “yes” in an effort to escape from an anxious funk.  It was a commonplace funk that has been called a lot of things over the last two years: languishing, demoralization, burnout, resignation.  Whatever it was, the manifestation was a cynical disposition, an itch that turned into scarred scratches extending down my legs, and an inability to do anything other than obligingly work.  My physical body and emotional state worsened due to the significant guilt I felt for being anxious despite all my privileges – a job, a steady income, a partner, no children.  I picked up running again in an attempt to exit the funk cycle in and to do so with a great friend by my side.

Externally, my adopted home – Oakland, California – was experiencing its own version of a depressive itch.  From March 2020 onward, the city itself languished.  Beloved businesses folded, office workers fled the uptown and downtown corridors, windows were boarded up ceasing to let that wonderful Oakland warmth into their now abandoned buildings.  Among the people that remain, I feel a sense of malaise and fatigue – perhaps a mere projection of how I still occasionally feel.

Despite all that, my friend and I ran each weekend for months, lengthening the number of miles and increasing the pace with each route.  By the time we ran the half-marathon, we knew we would finish.  What I did not know was how incredibly emotional I would feel running this race.  I did not train for being overwhlemed with emotions from running through Oakland specifically and mere days after the lifting of the indoor mask mandates in California.

The race began at Lake Merritt, a lagoon that feels like Oakland’s central artery – the city streets branching off in every cardinal direction from the Lake’s paved paths.  It was a beautiful clear morning with crisp air from rain that had fallen the day prior.  At 9:00 AM, we started running.

Around the lake going east, the race looped into Oaklandʻs Little Saigon, right at 7th and International Boulevard.  Like several other Asian enclaves, Oaklandʻs Little Saigon has had to contend with its own hardships.  This includes a toxic mix of contending with ever thinning small business margins from COVID and being scapegoated (sometimes violently) for the virus.  Standing in front of a park, a small group of cheering Vietnamese people propped up a sign that read “Welcome to Oakland’s Little Saigon”.  A young black woman with a microphone welcomed us with, “Donʻt just run through here – visit us.”  My favorite Vietnamese restaurant Danang Quan was still open and still operating despite it all.  After 2 years of processing the wave of anti-Asian hate and the implications of the pandemic on my community, I quietly began to cry.

God damn it, I thought.  I’m already fucking dehydrated with miles to go.  And it’s fucking hot.

On 19^th Street and Thomas L. Berkeley Way, I was suddenly met by a crowd of people yelling and screaming with signs like “If Trump can run, so can you.”  It was surreal.  I could see their faces.  I could see strangers no longer fearing the proximity that had to one another.  I could see their excitement.  I then realized that it was the first time in more than 2 years of seeing a crowd of mask-less people shouting not in pain, or sorrow, or injustice, but with joy.  That sound of bells, and clapping, and encouragement – it was electric.

The race took runners up Broadway Avenue, near the neighborhood where I recently purchased a house.  One of the last stops in race was Oakland Technical High School.  As challenging as COVID has been for all students, some of the hardest hits have taken place in the Oakland Unified School District.  There have been budget deficits, school closures, mass protest by students for safer COVID conditions, and general trauma that seeps into school grounds from more than a year of remote learning.  For the Oakland Tech students, there was another layer of hardship.  Last year, students staged a walkout to protest sexual misconduct and the lack of accountability from the school’s administration.  As I ran around Oakland Tech, a small group of high school students handed me water.  It was the Sunday of their last day on Spring Break and they were giving water to adults like me – adults that either though ignorance or lack of will, did little to protect them.  I welcomed the water, but couldn’t believe that they were helping us with elation.

All I could say was thank you.

From mile 11, my last wave of emotions came over me.  Not only was I almost finished with the race, but I began to feel something that I had not felt in many years –  runnerʻs high.  After many attempts at running, only to be interrupted by e-mails, text messages, and my own dopamine-motivated habits of stopping to scroll through social media, my attempts at reaching a “flow” have been dismal.  But here, running downhill towards lower elevation on Broadway, listening not to a podcast or a music, but just the sights and sounds of the Oakland, I felt it.  I didn’t feel pain, didn’t feel hard breathing.  I felt my entire body working together to enjoy something.  And all the reasons I started running more than a decade ago – to think about writing in that state of flow – happened.

From mile 11, I flew – flew through uptown composing language to the section you read above about Little Saigon.  I zipped then downtown, reflecting on the crowd at 19^th and Thomas L. Berkeley Way.  Then, I saw the lake and thought of all the ways to end this very piece.  I finished the race and, just a few hours later, started writing this piece.

No single marathon or half-marathon will truly soothe what has been inflicted not just on Oakland, but the country at-large.  This piece of writing will not follow the narrative arch of resolved, triumphant endings.  Amid the joy, there was also a lot of pain.  It was my own physical pain, but also the lingering symbols of Oakland’s trauma.  The occasional bits of broken glass crunching under my running shoe.  Blue and yellow Ukrainian flags flying on porches.  Passing the now-closed Luka’s, an uptown Oakland restaurant that felt like home.  The emptiness of Chinatown on a Sunday morning.  The encampments that our route tried to avoid in vain – an impossible task in some parts of the city.

All of the aforementioned pain existed.  But, for a rare moment, I was able to feel something other than that funk, that itch, that anxiety.  There were splices of happiness, of being with others, of joyful solidarity.

I had finished 13.1 miles with a cycle of a different kind – a renewed feeling of excitement that I would run and write again.

Despite my aversion to binge watching television, I recently finished the HBO miniseries The White Lotus.  I won’t go into details about the show except that it follows a group of vacationers at a luxury resort in Hawaiʻi.  For the purposes of this piece, I’ll focus on two exceptionally written characters named Olivia and Paula.  All you need to know is that these two are:

• college students who most likely attend an elite liberal arts institution
• are very left leaning in their politics to the extent that the term “woke” is pejoratively used to describe their perspectives
• unaware about the misalignment between their vacation and their social justice values
• objectively very mean people

Almost all the characters on The White Lotus are vile and the equivalent of a 50-mile, 500-car pile-up on the I-95.  However, I am absolutely drawn to Olivia and Paula.  I’ve seen their behaviors before.  I’ve experienced their moral grandstanding.  I knew these people. 

As someone who now lives on the Oakland/Berkeley border, I am in proximity to a few Olivias and Paulas.  I’ve met them at personal and professional events.  I read Olivia and Paula-esque “thought pieces” on the internet.  Depending on who you ask, I may actually be one of these people.  Olivia and Paula are people who supposedly signal things that have virtue or emit virtues that have signals.  They are the so-called virtue signalers.

I see, hear, read, and think about the term “virtue signal” a lot.  At a high level, to virtue signal is to publicly express opinions on issues in an effort to indicate that you are a good, righteous person.  Lately, the term has evolved to imply hypocrisy – a mismatch of stated values with real action. Although it has been associated with liberal perspectives, I strongly believe that virtual signaling is politically agnostic with plenty of examples on both the right and the left.

The public dialogue on virtue signaling is confusing to me.  It feels as if we recently discovered how complex and contradictory humanity is.  After all, aren’t we all some failed manifestation of our values?  Don’t we all occasionally falter against the images and words we project?  Aren’t we trying to establish a more perfect union between what we think and what we do?  Didn’t I just eat 13 Oreos after devouring a steak despite my declarations of living a healthier, plant-based, de-carbonized life?  Didn’t you?

On the other hand, I understand the frustrations that underlie our disdain for the virtual signaler.  I was triggered by the characterization of Olivia and Paula for a reason despite my alignment with their political views.  I loathe the meaningless and mean chatter that absorbs our political and digital spaces, rendering us stuck in a cycle of inaction.  I am alarmed by the number of times in which I have agreed with someone intellectually and politically, but felt the lack of kindness and compassion in their actions toward others.  I am disheartened that the solutions-oriented people in our community often don’t have a microphone.  I dislike the terms “thought leader” and “influencer” so, so, so much.  I’m often disappointed by the personal follies of people who carry those two aforementioned labels.

Most of all, I hate the yard signs. 

You know those dumb ass signs.  Those pieces of corrugated plastic hoisted by metal prongs declaring that “in this house, we believe…”.  I actually agree with the signs, but thatʻs not really the point.  It’s the physical manifestation of a social media post that leaves me asking more questions – who are you, do you really, if so why do you believe that, what do you do to align those statements with your actions, who are you voting for, who the hell is making all these signs, do you see the irony of these signs given that we live in an incredibly homogenous neighborhood (including the choice of yard sign erected in yards)?

This year, my intention is to create more than I criticize, which is strange given the content of what I just wrote – a criticism of the action-less critics of our world.  Again, I may be a virtue signaler, but whatever.  And so here, in their signaling virtuosity, are some alternative signs that I am thinking about placing in my yard:

Jen’s Brain While Running – 25-Year-Old Brain vs. 35-Year-Old Brain

Click here for a larger version.

• 25 Year Old Brain (Clockwise from Left): 1. Grad school obsession, 2. Grandiose writer dreams, 3. The Postal Service (the band), 4. “OMG, running is so fun, I could do this forever”, 5. Obama’s Tan Suit, 6. “Those fucking gentrifiers”, 7. Overthinking text from a girl who is probably straight.

• 35 Year Old (Discolored and More Squishy) Brain (Clockwise from Left): 1. Texting parents to confirm they are alive (they are), 2. Emails (Argh!), 3. The Postal Service (the government entity and its budget), 4. “I hate this, everything hurts, I forgot how to breathe while running “, 5. Is civilization collapsing or what?, 6. Am I the gentrifer? 7. Climate anxiety.

—

10 years ago, I was a 25 year old who ran marathons.  I would complete a few halves and a full marathon per year.  I would then write corny things about running as if it was a transcendental experience that only I was privy to.  It was reverse Columbusing – a young person of color discovering very white and sometimes very strange activities to call my own.

What powered me through each step of those 26.2 miles was not discipline nor diet nor technical understanding of my body and form.  I ran with youthful vanity and exuberance – sometimes after drinking a lot of alcohol.  I ran to say that I did, to look good for theoretical dates, to indulge in a single sitting of massive Chicken McNugget consumption, and because I could do so effortlessly.  I look back at marathon running goals that I held without any semblance of disciplined effort.  I’m in awe of a young mentality I once had that was a blend of untested pride and confidence.

It’s been 10 years since my last major race and so much has transpired.  I went back to school, got married, bought a house, reluctantly learned what “mutual funds” are, and wondered how this queer little runner fumbled into semi-stable adulthood.  I’ve experienced a lot of joy, especially with my partner, friends, and family.  Simultaneously, I’ve dealt with personal and professional failures that slowly calloused me with fear.  I’ve watched systems – political, social, financial – succumb to a pandemic, moral panic, and a general public distrust that still perplexes me.  I’ve witnessed my family home flood with grey water by a supposedly once-in-a-100 year flooding event while observing the skies of Northern California literally turn ashy from endemic wildfire smoke.  Each year of the last 10 has felt historic – sometimes the good kind and sometimes the terrifying kind.  These days, I feel slower and more burdened by things external to my body.

At 25, I ran with the kind of bursting energy that propelled me miles and filled me with the invincible arrogance that I could get up and do it again.  And I did do it again and again, faster and faster – many times until I decided to stop at 26.  Just a pause, I told myself.  It’ll be easy to get back to running and I have other, better things to focus on.

Now, at 35, I have finally returned to running.  I am partially motivated by shedding the stress my body carries from the pandemic and aging.  However, I am most moved by a wondering.  Do I still have it?  Can I still be that girl undeterred from running the rolling hills of San Francisco or energized by cutting through miles and miles of Houston humidity for a so-called personal best time?  I am not talking about running the same mileage and speed at 25, but by living with the same fearlessness and wonder of the 25-year-old girl I once was – as flawed and shortsighted as that girl may have been.

The return from my running pause has been, candidly, very difficult.  I am slower and my body feels all the things that I loathe to associate with myself – rusty, crunchy, viscous in motion, mired with adulthood worry.  The first miles of running are incised with thoughts that extinguish elusive runner’s flow or high – the bills I need to pay, the e-mail I need to write, whether free Britney Spears is still kind of crazy, whether my knees will give out, etc.

I used to be able to parse out the easy runs (5K) from the hard runs (a full marathon).  Now, all the runs are hard, perhaps because the last 10 years has resulted in 10 additional pounds and some emotional heaviness that feels a lot more than any of the physical weight I have put on. 

As much as I complain and breathe far too heavily and feel the fatigue in my legs, I keep running.  I have far less of the fresh energy that propelled me previously.  However, I have newer tools acquired with some age – patience, grace for myself, friends who care and keep me accountable, financial resources for good shoes and weird gooey carbohydrates, routine, and internal goals that feel much more important than the external goals I previously held.

I feel as if I am running between the exuberant girl I once was and the woman I have always wanted to be.  For now, I’m in the middle of that journey, trotting along – sometimes in pain, sometimes with persistence, always moving forward, 35 and beyond.