The Art of Racing in the Rain

This workweek may have been only four days, but it was the longest four days of my life. Because I have everyone's back, I've missed crucial things of my own job over a long series of months, and with this event I am reminded--I'm not supposed to be doing this for a living. This was something that I ended up in, and most of the time I can hold it together and have the strength of thousands and fix everything, but I don't enjoy fixing everything and putting my own health on the line to fix everything. It's just something I feel is the right thing to do.

So when I fail at this occupation, I fail twice--once as a professional, and another time as a person.

I knew I was in real trouble Wednesday...but I figured if I could just get through the day then I could do what animals do: crawl off into a corner somewhere and lose it and be cleansed and ready for the next big problem I have to fix. It's sort of like trying not to pee for an entire day (another distant animal analogy to a dog having to hold it all day indoors), and I almost made it. At around 4 pm I was working on shipping (yes, all of my people are back and I'm still in the workflow), and my shipper said to me, "I got it...you go take a break." It was like someone pulled the cork out. I walked to the back of the warehouse, where the large and dusty items live, and leaned against a racking and tried to get rid of all of it. Where the problem came into play is, it wouldn't stop. My body and mind, faced with a final straw, kept me trapped. So I tried to put the cork back in and walked back into the office to get some work done, a million deadlines raining down like ropes of chain-mail. And five people wondering if I had gone crazy.

The cork wouldn't go back in.

So I ended up being quietly hysterical (the best way to lose it on mass transit, by the way, is to wear sunglasses and stare out the window) until I was able to get home five hours later and pour myself a good quantity of alcohol. THEN the cork was back in. It's a strange feeling to have to drink in order to be sober, but that's what worked. I realize that it wasn't the most healthy option, but it was the best option. Other options wouldn't have been as pleasant.

In the next days following, I was calmer without the aid of alcohol, but feeling empty. I didn't read, I didn't write, I just worked late and tried not to think. I was hibernating (ah, another animal reference). For the past few weeks I have been reading a novel at the recommendation of my roommate, a poignant book by Garth Stein called "The Art of Racing in the Rain," the most perfect title for a quietly roaring book. I know next to the nothing about racing and don't really have an affinity for racing--like I didn't have an affinity for football before reading "The Blind Side." And finishing this book, I don't find myself wanting to watch racing--to follow the true love of this book, I think I would have to get behind a wheel myself. That is only a part of the book too, mind you--the book is told from the point of view of a racing driver's dog, who is only in the car once in the course of the book. Is this too thin of a thread to tie the two? Not with Stein's talents.

I could talk all day about how much I enjoyed this book, what it taught me, what kind of literary art it was, but on a more intuitive level I will only say this--I read the end of the book this morning and got a tremendous sense of relief. I can't pinpoint where or when it happened, but I think this passage helped make it possible:

I know this much about racing in the rain. I know it is about balance. It is about anticipation and patience. I know all of the driving skills that are necessary for one to be successful in the rain. But racing in the rain is also about the mind! It is about owning one's own body. About believing that one's car is merely an extension of one's body. About believing that the track is an extension of the car, and the rain is an extension of the track, and the sky is an extension of the rain. It is about believing that you are not you; you are everything. And everything is you.

If I were a more articulate writer, you'd have a solution to grasp here, a reason to read this book. In all actuality, you just have to trust me. Maybe you haven't been unbalanced in body and mind, or maybe you are doing what you want to do with your life for 10 hours a day. But I'm not. My intention with these posts to Facebook was to give you something positive from California...this post didn't start out that way, but I'd like to think that it had a happy ending this week, even if from a book, with the same kind of happy endings I used to have in college with books. Somewhere in a clear September sky, the track's wet. I'm given the gift of racing in the rain.