My birthday is two months from next Friday. I will be 74, the age my grandmother and also her elder daughter died. When my mom turned 80, I teased her that she hadn’t expected to live that long. She laughed and said it was true.

In the past month, we missed our dental appointments because we had a cold—the first cold either of us have suffered since 2019! We did see our doctor, and that has resulted in some changes. I’d suggested that I was thinking of not running and she urged me to run as long as I was able. Labs came back, and so I’ve cut butter and high fat dairy. While I have little faith in pills, we are now both taking calcium, D3, and B12. Research suggests the B12 is something critical I’ve missed. You don’t need more as you age, but stomach acid is less acid among the elderly and thus less capable of accessing B12 in the diet. The calcium and D3 are for the bones, and we’re getting other essential minerals from food, Gary especially from bananas and me from avocados. We are vegetarian and should be vegan, but cheese…

This week I went to a new podiatrist because my previous podiatrist vanished without a trace. I decided I probably could use a second pair of orthotics. My last podiatrist was a runner, autistic, and never touched me—it was that last thing that struck me as… odd. This new one, a referral from our new GP, manipulated my feet, measured everything, said my shoes were right, my daily walking was right, my diet was right, and I was in “good shape.” He also insisted that my feet needed me to stop running. He said he didn’t care what I did—my choice—but we all die. He assured me several times: “You’ll do what you do. I don’t care.” He said my foot structure is inherited and will continue to worsen and running speeds that process. Landing hard on each stride is hard on my joints. My arches will break down, everything will hurt more, the arthritis progress. As to what I do about all that? “I don’t care.” He said I needed to be stretching; I confessed I wasn’t doing that.

A couple of things: I shared that my GP urged me to keep running, and he promptly said that doctors knows X and Y, not feet. He knows feet. I believe him. I also know that I weigh a hundred pounds less than my podiatrist and that I tend to run “light” specifically to spare my feet. Quiet feet are happy feet! I have been injured numerous times, sometimes as a runner: trying to keep up with a dancer (never try to keep up with a dancer), thank you, Jennifer Wascher; running in bad shoes on concrete (even blacktop is better) but earth or any sand where you leave a print is better; running when I hurt (nearly shin splints, but it only took me 10 days to be fine again); and, most recently, planks for 4 minutes (maybe others can do this, I should not) wrecked me. My podiatrist assured me that my injury a year ago that made walking a challenge for months absolutely was not a stress fracture. Whatever it was, coming back at my age is not easy or quick.

Two months till I’m 74. I honestly hope, nearly expect, to live into my 90s. My blood pressure was consistently 90/60 until menopause. I’ve worked to get it down from stage 2 hypertensive. Running helps. Diet helps. Sleep.

The condo in Portland was our preparation for when we are no longer safe to drive. [I have several horrible personal experiences involving people driving after the age of 80, two involving my mother, one involving me and my sons, one involving deaths.] We wanted to be walking distance to shops and restaurants, someplace we could have deliveries. We have a theater around the corner, a long walk to Forest Park up the street, and another park around the corner. The podiatrist urged yoga and I am thinking Tai Chi—with studios for each nearby. There are people aging in place in our building. [Gary has decided he’s the oldest man in the building. He’s probably correct.] I have planned all this because I learned to be a planner as an artist.

I write intuitively. I test abstract/random. I connect ideas and stories in a manner that makes some people impatient in conversation. Given the chance, I digress further and further before bringing it around. My podiatrist wasn’t interested in stories or explanations. His is a concrete/linear sort of brain. Creativity, in my mind, doesn’t work that way, or at least it doesn’t work that way for me. My head meanders and finds a pathway through generally unrelated concepts. I am surprised, delighted, in my process. When writing, this often means that I not only don’t know where something is going, I don’t even recognize what it’s about until late in the process. Trust your process. I fight my natural chaos to maintain a single thread. I can do that. My involvement in metals and ceramics and fabric art has kept my mathematical skill intact. More important, I learned to chart step by step progress because I had to.

I had a large enamel-on-copper commission many years ago and this is the beginning of the process:

• preliminary sketches
• test samples of enamels on copper
• a full color rendering for the client contract
• full-scale schematic for me to work from
• calculate and order the required powdered enamel
• visit Alaska Copper and Brass to purchase heavier sheet-copper because the pieces are large
• cut the copper shapes, using a step-shear for straights and jewelers saw for curves
• file edges
• grind and wash the enamel and dry
• clean panels, lightly sand with 500-paper sandpaper and pickle [a mild acid bath to remove oxidation], and dry
• spray, apply enamel to the backs of each each copper panel, dry under heat lamp, and fire @1700°F
• weight each panel, face down, as it cools to maintain a flat surface
• sand, pickle, and clean the fronts
• … only now does the actual enameling begin, and then beveling the edges, scruffing the backs and framing—still dozens of steps to complete that work.

This is from my memory of 50 years ago, 1974 or 1975? After listing them here, I had to go back and add steps I’d forgotten, several times. In the day, I wrote steps in a list and checked them off as they were completed. I had other academic classes that term (and maybe I was doing hollowware?), and working about 18 hours a week at the record shop. I hogged the enameling kiln firing the first layer of enamel. I ticked off others for over an hour while I fired my panels consecutively because the chemistry in the kiln can alter colors and I needed each panel to match. They were right to be annoyed; I was right to fire my pieces one right after the other. That was the other reason I worked until was in the studio till I was kicked out at 10pm.

All this to say, I do not come to a linear process naturally—it’s not how my brain works—but I can manage it when I must.

Will I stop running? My podiatrist says he doesn’t care, we’re all going to die. My GP says use it or lose it. Running a mile, just now, is relatively easy. Running two is a push. I’d hope to run six miles next month. Maybe not.

I’ve been a runner since 1993. I used to run six miles every other day during August and that felt great for the rest of the day. When I began turning out with the cross country team, I could keep up with all but the varsity boys. The last time I ran six miles was the 10k (6.2 miles) Great Columbia Bridge Crossing in 2024, which I’d trained for. I was second in my age group. Do I need to run it again? I would like to, but need? I could walk all or part of it. I could skip it. It’s usually cold and wet and starts in the dawn, and I really do love it. I take walking breaks. I run slow. I’ve never been fast. My best times running 5k and up to 4 miles, were sub 9-minute miles. That was long ago.

I am reminded of the story William Stafford’s son told at a conference many years ago. [Forgive me if I get any of this wrong; it’s what I recall.] His father had a regular run and as he aged this got slower and more difficult. Kim reminded his dad that he wasn’t obligated to run the same speed or even the same distance. He could adjust his route to what worked, for what gave him the workout he wanted. It was a routine, not a requirement. Run, then write an aphorism and a poem draft every morning.

Running every other day was my habit over most of the last forty years except when I was coaching or prepping for an event such as the Hood to Coast. A day to work the muscles hard, a day to heal. I’ve always done that. Slowing down and shortening the workouts for a week, and even resting a few days before an event will produce a stronger performance. This was something Neil Branson didn’t actively teach his runners because he didn’t think teenagers could do that mentally. It’s what we did, in fact, but not something we explained. I understand what he meant. It feels counterintuitive to slow down in order to run faster, but I know it works.

I did my mile this morning—one reason this post is late.

Maybe I will stop running, but keep walking as my podiatrist urged. Or maybe I’ll find a compromise I can live with.

Don’t give up. Adjust.