Home Runs

These days I write as I've long written. The first stop for the words is a page in an ongoing journal, and more often than not they go no further. These writings almost always end at a single page. The frequency is daily, with no days off. The setting for this writing is an office at home that doubles as a bedroom for visitors. The writing has truly come home again, to a house where I finally feel very much at home. I've been here since 1992, but took a long time and a long and winding road to find this home. I'd looked for one again ever since leaving my early hometown of Coin, Iowa. Over the next three decades I'd lived in four states, eight cities and towns, and 20 different houses (none longer than three years) before settling at the current address. I'm not a hermit here that I once was. Even this house used to a place to hide out and hunker down to write between trips. I flew out of Eugene 20 to 25 times a year, to take the stage before running audiences and pretend to be famous. So much was I away, and so busy at home, that I played no role in Eugene's large and lively running community. Now I'm all but retired from the road. My travels have shrunk to three or four a year, nearly all of those for family reunions - with my real family and with running friends who feel like family. Meanwhile I get out of my writing cave a lot more often - to teach running classes at the local university, coach marathoners through a local running store, help at several local races, and stand and cheer at many more. I'm home at last and loving it. This book is the story of how I got here.