Everyone must take time to sit and watch the leaves turn. ~Elizabeth Lawrence

Every year my internal clock recognizes the first signs of autumn, long before the temperature changes. Rays of sun penetrate the air at sharper angles, are more yellow, richer and thick. The air itself is no longer opaque from the summer humidity and heat, but is clear…feels fresh and crisp on my skin and in my lungs when I breathe. Leaves, not yet their brilliant yellow, orange and red, whisper secrets of their colors to come, hints of their future. Hanging loosely on tree limbs, they wait for autumn winds to tug and pull them from the comfort of mother tree to gently fall, float and land safely on the ground below.

There is something about this time of year that conjures up a deep well of melancholy for me…not quite sorrow…not quite gratitude, but a feeling that lands somewhere between the two…a yearning of things not yet revealed, but that wait to be. The autumn season brings with it an inherent need for me to reminisce, ponder and visit the places of my life that have been points of transition, change and revelation.

My son’s birthday is in the fall: September 24th to be exact. Fourteen years ago Hank was born. A violent thunderstorm raged outside our hospital room as he and I worked together to transition him from the comfort of my body to the world outside. This week he started high school. These days when I talk with Hank it is generally on his terms. My questions are often responded to with a “I dunno“ or some other hard to understand series of words. His tone of voice hints at frustration and sometimes annoyance that I asked the question in the first place.

So I often wait for him to initiate the conversation. I let him take us to the places he wants to explore…with me serving as guide, sounding board, his friend…his mom. He is taller than me and his voice much deeper than it used to be. With the musculature of his back beginning to unveil the man beneath, I feel small and almost frail in his presence. I can remember the night of his birth holding him in my arms and nursing him to sleep. The thunder in the distance, the lightening on the horizon and the comfort of steady rain outside our window, the two of us there, getting to know each other.

And now, I see his wheels turning, the silence and solitude of a young man searching…exploring…seeking answers from within. At times I long for the ability to return to the days of before…hold in my arms and tell him all is right with the world and know that saying this is enough…know that this is all my boy needs to feel comforted, safe and secure.

But the truth is, my internal clock is signaling that the time is ripe for us to transition from the relationship we have known to something new, different, sometimes scary and often times right. Hank the leaf and me the tree. His full colors are not yet present but are slowly revealing themselves in the decisions he is making and the person he is becoming…his waiting now for the winds of his future to gently tug and pull him from the tree of youth to fall and float to the solid ground of adulthood.

Birth to life…summer to autumn…leaf to ground…boy to man. Another year passes and I am present in the melancholy…resting somewhere between sorrow and gratitude. I love you Hank.

Morning People

“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world.”

E.B. White

I am SO a morning person. One day last week, while driving my children to an orthodontist appointment I had conveniently (for me anyway) scheduled at 7:45 a.m., my son commented out of the blue, half-dozing, half awake. “I just don’t know why you do that.”

Hank is a rising ninth grader. He starts high school on Tuesday. I hear this particular phrase from him a lot these days. He seems to have a need right now to NOT understand me…a kind of tribal rite of passage…a universal statement that allows him to safely move toward more autonomy and a healthy dose of self-sufficiency and curious questioning.

“I just don’t know why you get up so early. Why do you do that?”

I thought for a minute. By the time I responded, Hank had fallen back asleep, this time with his head against the passenger side window. I responded anyway. “Because, it’s the one time of the day I own.”

My Mom got sober in 1970. I was in fourth grade. Not shortly after, she started running. She would launch out of the house, the screen door slamming behind her, feet to follow on the gravel pathway just outside. One hour later she would come back, perspiring, red-faced and happy. She was literally transforming before my very eyes.

My mom was tall, svelte and quite elegant. She was captain of the basketball team and Homecoming Queen. She went to Smith College and shortly after, met my father. He drove onto campus, one fall day, in a baby blue convertible and the rest was history.

Mary still is the most authentic woman I’ve ever known. In March of 1970, she hit bottom. It took a couple of tries before sobriety “stuck” but once it did, she became a tremendous advocate for women struggling to get sober. She started working at a local Alcohol Treatment facility and sponsored dozens of women in a 12-step program. She wrote poetry, read poetry and even had a number of her poems published. She competed in many local 5k’s, winning her age group. She started running longer distances and competed in a number of 10k’s, 15k’s and even one half-marathon.

In 1974, I joined her on one of her early morning runs. I was 14. She was 52. The sun was not yet up. The screen door screeched “good morning”, our feet hit the gravel and we were soon journeying through our neighborhood. I ran one block with her--about a mile. We didn’t say a word. Our feet rhythmically hit the hard cement in unison, our breath in and out—mantra like--the crisp edge to approaching autumn filling our lungs. I had never experienced anything quite like it…the quiet, the fellowship, the power.

I started running regularly with my Mom. The one-mile block grew into two blocks and then three. Eventually we were running eight, nine and ten miles together, usually first thing in the morning. And no matter how crazy my “other life” got (high school, college, my 20’s) meeting my mom for that early morning run was a welcoming sanctuary, where mother-daughter became woman-woman…where I felt connected, loved and whole in spite of the low feelings of self-worth during the remainder of my day.

There is something quite magical about the early mornings. These days it is simple…a cup of coffee, a lit candle and time to just be with myself, by myself. The sound of night crickets crosses over to early birds, traffic, school buses and my children just waking. I have learned a lot about myself in the early morning hours…time to think, ponder, wonder and be. The weariness of the day hasn’t yet soaked in and my big ideas, hopes and dreams somehow seem to feel more honest, doable and realistic. There is a gleaming optimism that shines with each morning…not yet tarnished by carpools, homework and laundry.

I love the morning, whether I’m running, writing or just being. The solitude, quiet and expectation of the day feeds my idealism, hope and belief in my life's work, my children's futures and the future of all children. I am fueled by the certainty with which I write THIS morning that if I seek the good, then the good will come.

Do you set aside time to dream, think and hope for bigger things not yet obtained? If not, why not? If yes, when? Let me know here or at molly@girlsontherun.org.

What Do You Want to See?

Alright...I'm on vacation. Based on the last two blogs entries, I need one. Sometimes in my effort to connect the dots, I literally wear myself out.

Something fun I've done with my kids in the past that we are re-visiting on this vacation is the "What do I want to see today?" game.

So, here is how it works. First thing in the morning, gather the clan together and ask the question, "What do you want to see today?" The object of the game is for each person to name something they rarely see, that they want to see some time over the course of their day. The challenge, however, is that the "thing seen" must be seen a total of three times. No more, no less.

Several months ago, my daughter Helen set a pretty high bar. "I want to see three pink cars." We had no plans to attend a Mary Kay seminar in the next 24 hours so the apparent likelihood of seeing three pink cars before my daughter's bedtime was slim to none.

Well...I'll be darned if three hours later, two of the three pink cars had been spotted. The remainder of the day, as we went about our errands, we searched high and low for the final pink car...but to no avail...the car did not reveal itself.

About 8:00 just before Helen's bedtime, I realized I had run out of my asthma medication. (I was diagnosed with exercise-induced asthma in my early 20's) so off Helen and I trekked to the pharmacy. The prescription was ready for us when we arrived. As I stood at the check-out counter, Helen squeals with delight. "Mom. Look! The pink car. See! THE pink car!" Helen is pointing to a small pink toy car which is precariously balanced on the magazine rack, apparently forgotten and left there by another family.

We left the car there, but OUR mission was accomplished. Three pink cars had, indeed been seen.

On another occasion, the goal was to see three red stars. Helen was very specific this time...the stars had to have five points and the red had to be through and through. No outlines of a star were acceptable. The stars had to be solid red.

Just starting out on our errands, Helen shouts out from the backseat of the car, "Look Mom, there's the first one!" On the side of a large tractor trailer, tucked neatly into the company's logo, rested a five-pointed solid red star! I chuckle as I ponder her nonchalant approach to the game these days...as if she just KNOWS that what she is seeking will be seen. (The pink car experience must have solidified her belief in expectation.)

"Very cool, Helen. Very cool."

A couple of hours later, we are leaving one of our errand-stops. The automated doors open and Helen and I step out. A woman shouts, "Molly Barker. Stop! Molly! Do you remember me?"

The woman walked over and reminded me that she had attended a coach's training some time ago. During our conversation, Helen begins nudging me.

"Hold on a minute, Helen. Hold on." I knew she was ready to go home.

The nudging continued.

I leaned down to be eye level with her and asked, "What is it, sweetie? You are not letting up on this one."

With a huge grin on her face, Helen whispered, "Mom. Look at her arms!"

There neatly tucked away on each wrist was a red star tattoo. A solid red, five-pointed star tattoo.

Mission accomplished.

Believe me, we've been very demanding of the universe with our expectations. We've looked for neon green shoes, yellow butterflies, and purple hats. We've looked for "I love you's" which we overhear, two people high-fiving and bald men running. Seriously, when is the last time YOU hoped to see three men, who were bald, out on a run!

But I'll be darned, if every time...yes EVERY TIME we asked, we received.

The power behind the game is obvious. We see what we choose to see. The world is rich with so much wonder. When I get caught in seeing only the negative, a quick reminder to pull me out is to remember the beautiful red stars tucked away on those wrists. When I can't see anything positive in the actions of my 14 year old son, I can flip the coin and recognize his actions as those of an evolving, maturing and independent young man...a process I truly welcome.

I close with this story.

Washington, DC Metro Station on a cold January morning in 2007.


The man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time approximately 2 thousand people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. After 3 minutes a middle aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried to meet his schedule.

4 minutes later, the violinist received his first dollar. A woman threw the money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk.

6 minutes later, a young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.

10 minutes later, a 3-year old boy stopped but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The child stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother was persistent and they continued to walk. He turned his head the entire time.

45 minutes later, the musician played continuously. Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while. About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace. The man collected a total of $32.

He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

The violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before Joshua Bell sold out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.

This is a true story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste and people's priorities. The questions raised: in a common place environment at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?

One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be this: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made.... How many other things are we missing?

So, now it is your turn. What do you choose to see today?

(For a full recap of the Washington Post article on this topic check out this link...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html)

The Comfort of My Sister's Arms

“Is solace anywhere more comforting than in the arms of a sister?”
Alice Walker

This week, six of our council directors met with me and Amy Way, a PhD. student at Arizona State University to learn about the new components in our re-write of the Girls on the Run curriculum. The conversation was lively, to say the least. I had several professional and personal revelations over the course of our two days together…one of which is how much the new curriculum in many ways reflects a new me.

Back when I started Girls on the Run, I had not yet found the words to articulate the power of our program. I did, however, coin a phrase which explains the experience that most women share at about the time of puberty. We call it "The Girl Box."

The Girl Box is the imaginary place that girls go around middle school where we begin to morph into what we think we should be instead of who we really are. The specific messages of the Girl Box vary but the overarching theme of these messages are rooted in the belief that girls and women are incapable (based on a number of perceived deficits that have been handed down and are deeply entrenched into our collective psyches) of determining their own destiny and therefore require those who are perceived as capable (usually those in the dominant think-group) to do that for them.

As founder of Girls on the Run, I am fortunate to have had literally hundreds of conversations with women about the Girl Box. One conclusion upon which I’ve landed and only recently been able to articulate is how complex the Girl Box really is. What is considered a Girl Box behavior by one woman is NOT considered a Girl Box behavior by another. For example, I personally would not find empowerment through participating in the pageant process yet many of my "sisters" participate in that process and genuinely feel empowered by it. For me, aging naturally is a sign of authenticity and empowerment; whereas for someone else feeling and being empowered may mean using a variety of anti-aging techniques including plastic surgery. Each of us has a perception of what is considered an “in the Girl Box behavior” and what is considered an “out of the Girl Box behavior” based on the unique set of Girl Box messages handed to us by our circumstances and life stories.

The issue with having so many variations on what the messages of the Girl Box are, makes it very challenging for our gender to collectively come together around any one issue. This variation in perception not only creates a lack of unity between us, but furthers the stereotypes that portray us as “mean girls”, “gossip girls” and as “backstabbing bitches.” We can’t agree on what being a woman has to do with being ourselves, plain and simple. If we can’t agree, we can’t mobilize a movement. We can’t express a unified voice, thus allowing the dominant think-group to remain in control which in some instances/cultures/belief systems put our "sisters" into extremely dangerous circumstances.

There is, however, one thing of which I am absolutely certain and over which there is no dispute among women: spending time with the girls in Girls on the Run is a source of empowerment. Every week I get cards, letters and emails from women sharing how Girls on the Run has touched their lives.

• “I had no idea what a people pleaser I was, until I started coaching Girls on the Run. The lesson on “standing up for myself” took my awareness up a notch and is pushing me to apply what we teach the girls, to my own life. How liberating to know that I can actually choose who I want to spend time with.”

• “It’s really hard to look an 8 year old girl in the eyes and tell her she is beautiful and worthy just the way she is, and not feel that way about myself. The truth is, my girls are teaching me where my power really comes from.”

• “In theory, I knew that reading gossip magazines was not good for a person, but I had no idea how much they were influencing the view I have of myself until we did the lesson on “Tuning into a New Message.” How funny is it that a group of 6th graders taught me that I don’t have to view those magazines, much less purchase them. Thank you SO much!”

Over the years, I’ve met many, many women. Each of us brings to this world our own stories, our own experiences, our own Girl Box. And over the years when I have taken the time to listen, I realize that what I really want is to embrace a deep level of tenderness toward all of my sisters…I yearn to obtain a welcoming understanding that what we all want really, is to feel beautiful, fully accepted and unconditionally loved just as we are and where we are in our own personal evolution.

I want to keep it personal…to open my mind to understand what drives a woman. I want to learn from her the pain and joy that brought her here. I want to provide for every woman, regardless of the barriers, power differential, institutions, belief systems and stereotypes she is battling in her own life, an opportunity to feel worthy, whole and warmed.

I want to share with her the love, power and self-worth I feel every time I see the rare, raw and wonderful in an 8 year old girl’s eyes as she stands there delicately balanced on the starting line of her own life story.

I want to welcome her to the world of Girls on the Run, where she is safely encouraged to explore, evolve and question her way to self-worth, contentment and empowerment in her way…in her own time and at her own pace.

What were the specific messages of your Girl Box and how have those shown up in your behavior? How have they changed as you have grown older? How are the messages of your Girl Box different from other women you’ve known? How have your perceptions of the Girl Box influenced your view of other women and their actions? Let me know at molly@girlsontherun.org.

Shush Girl

“I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat…”

Rebecca West

Sometimes I need to just lighten up. But this one has really set me off…set me off so much that I’ve got to write about it.

3OH!3, a duo pop band from Colorado is making the Top 40 rounds with a song entitled, Don’t Trust Me. I have to admit that I’m a pop radio listener. If you pulled some songs off my I-Pod you would find everything from the Weather Girls, Jonas Brothers and a few Britney Spears hits.

But this one…this one has gotta go. “Shush girl, shut your lips. Do the Helen Keller, and talk with your hips.”

Where do I start? With the Helen Keller comment or the implications that girls should just shut up and be nothing more than sexual objects, conquests or empty, soul-less shells.

Do I start with my Girls on the Run friend Shelley? When Shelley entered fourth grade, she was embarrassed so badly by the response of her peers to a question she said in Math class, that she stopped talking.

Or do I begin with Sharkira…my fourth grade friend who was beaten and neglected so badly by her parents that she stopped speaking. Speaking where she lived only got her cigarette burns, a slap across the face or “time out” for hours, in a dark closet.

What about my smart friend Britney, sexually abused by her father through middle school. The voice of that pain remained dormant until the pattern repeated itself with her husband and beautiful daughter. The fear even then of speaking up on her daughter’s behalf was overwhelming…requiring weeks to overcome and even more weeks to gather the courage to seek help.

What about Joanie, a Girls on the Run coach. Two-thirds of the way through our program she mustered up enough strength to collect her belongings, her two children and leave an abusive husband.

Then there is Rebecca, who cried out no, so many times that her rapist permanently silenced her with a gun to the back of her throat.

What about Sarah, only now at age 35, is recovering from her experience as a victim of sex trafficking--only now able to talk about the fear, pain and brutality of her captors. Purposely addicted to drugs by her abductors, she spent her teens and early twenties, silenced by the drugs and beaten by her owners.

Or maybe I talk about Natia, raped in her small Ethiopian village at age 13. She was too young to birth a baby, torn from the inside out, reeking now of urine and feces and discarded from her community for speaking out against this heinous crime…by simply begging for medical treatment.

Yeah…maybe I do need to lighten up, but right now, right this minute, if you go on the internet, google the lyrics to this song, you will see literally hundreds of videos of little girls, teens and young women, dancing, performing and shouting out this phrase, either unaware or uncaring of its implications.

Women make up at least half of the population. We also have fathers, brothers and other men in our lives that would cry out in anger if any one of us were silenced, deafened or blinded by abuse, violence or any institutionalized form of sexism.

But we don’t see the connections, between lyrics and words like this and the continuum of circumstances that demoralize us, demean us and leave us without our voices.

I won’t watch 3OH!3 , listen to them, or talk about them ever again and invite you to do the same. Our power comes not only from our increasing awareness of how sexism is institutionalized in our music, videos and entertainment, but the building momentum, I see through my work with Girls on the Run, to consciously and intentionally turn it off.

So now, it’s done. I’m done. Story over, book closed. These lyrics are no longer.

Climbing Out of the Girl Box

Yesterday marked a very important day in my life. July 7th, 1993 was the day my life changed. Couple that anniversary with the fact that I am in the middle of updating our Girls on the Run curriculum and I'm filled with an amalgam of emotions...many that leave me both word-less and word-full at the same time. Wordless because I'm focused on completing the Girls on the Run curriculum re-write by Friday. Word-full because of the importance of July 7th in my life.

To honor this special day and also honor the curriculum work I'm currently focusing on for this week, rather than create something new and in the moment for this blog-space, I'm going to pull up something I wrote in my book, "Girls on Track: A Parent's Guide to Inspiring our Daughters to Achieve a Lifetime of Self-Esteem and Healthy Living.".

So here goes. Happy "Girls on the Run Day"!

"I was in sixth grade when the Girl Box began to wedge its way over my body and spirit. Sixth grade was a tough year.

Eleanor Jones was my best friend then. We were the two new girls at a school where most kids had started kindergarten together.

The thing that distinguished us from each other, however, was that Eleanor was getting breasts and I wasn't. We were new, and all the boys were noticing Eleanor.

That's when I started to want to be somebody else. Anybody but me. My charming personality just wasn't getting it. Neither was my intelligence, my humor, or even my athleticism. None of that was working. The boys just wanted to pop Eleanor's bra strap, chase her, and be in her company. I happened to be in their company because I was friends with Eleanor. That was the only reason. I felt like the third wheel all the time--even when I wasn't with her.

In sixth grade, it didn't seem as if the boys were interested in what I could do. They didn't want to play the same way they had just the summer before. They wanted to pop bra straps and chase Eleanor around the playground. I didn't understand what I had done wrong. I was still funny, considerate, and friendly. I was bright, witty, and athletic. But I wasn't Eleanor. I wasn't what Eleanor represented.

And so I reluctantly let them lower the Girl Box over me. It was suffocating in there.

I was a prime candidate for the Girl Box. I was the fourth of four, nine years younger than the one before me. My mom was an alcoholic and my father worked a lot. Everyone in my house seemed to want to be somewhere other than where they were. My sister Helen was my primary caregiver. She taught me to read. She took me on dates with her and tried her best to protect me from the chaos of our home.

Somewhere around fourth grade, the memories shut off--the pain went underground. The psyche does some pretty amazing protective things, especially for children when the hurt is too great.

It was not until my mom had her breakdown a year later that my memories returned. Dr. Thomas came to our house, my father came home from work, and they all talked very secretly in the guest bedroom. My mother hit what folks in the treatment world call bottom.

That was May of 1970. I'm happy to say, from that day forward, my relationship with my mother, flourished...the laughter returned to our house. We made family trips out West, spent weekends together staying up and snuggling. We made up for lost time. I absolutely loved my mom's company and would opt for it over that of my friends. My mother became my best friend.

But inside lay many lost memories, the shame that we never really talked about. And as I grew both physically and emotionally, that shame started to show up in all kinds of ways.

So as painful as it was, the Girl Box actually felt sort of right. It was the only place that affirmed what I believed to be true. The message of the Girl Box is do more, be more, give more--because we are never good enough, never pretty enough, never smart enough, never sexy enough...never enough. Girls and women in the darkness of that box never celebrate what we are but are constantly seeking what we are not. We give away our very souls to anyone who will love us. People pleasing becomes a way of life. Life becomes a series of performances rather than experiences. Our words are not our own. There is a set script.

Coping with the Girl Box has many ways of showing up. It may be an obsession with appearance or a fear of failure. We may fear success, and sabotage every opportunity to get it. We might defer to boys in the classroom or men in the workplace. Some of us spend our entire lives trying to please others and forget ourselves. We fix people, clean up after others, take care of disputes--we spend so much time taking care of others that we lose ourselves in the process. More extreme coping mechanisms include food, sex, drug, plastic surgery and material addictions.

In 1976, I took my first drink. I also bought my first pair of running shoes.

Oh...the power of both.

When I was under the influence of alcohol, the shame magically went away and I felt beautiful, flirtatious, witty, and fearless. I was comfortable in the stifling Girl Box--shameless and free to be something I was not. I could fake the script, play the part, be what the Girl Box wanted me to be...be what YOU wanted me to be.

But...when I ran, oh the wonder...the joy...like meditation, my mind cleared and the experience allowed me to focus on the sound of my steps, the rhythm of my breathing, and the air passing over my body. I sweated; sometimes I would grunt and groan with exertion and I didn't care that it wasn't feminine. I felt beautiful, whole and powerful. I felt real, alive and connected.

But eventually addiction won out. On July 6th, 1993. I hit bottom. I was empty, silent and deafened by the cycle of shame that now held me captive. The lid to the Girl Box was seven feet above me, when I placed a last-ditch call to my sister. "Lift me out, please somebody, anybody! I can be no longer..."

My sister had heard this from me many times and, as always, she was patient: "Molly, just sleep on it. Promise me that you will just sleep on it--see how you feel in the morning."

I hung up the phone, curled up on the couch and lay there in the despair, in the silence and the darkness of the Girl Box, and knew that nothing short of a miracle would pull me out of that wished-for sleep.

The following evening, July 7th, somehow, I dragged myself out the door and by rote hit the pavement for a run. The air was electric with a coming thunderstorm, the wind blowing the leaves of the trees upside down and causing the dirt on the street to swirl up. Rounding the last corner of a six-mile run onto East Boulevard, I was on the last stretch of road toward the apartment where I was staying. Everything was in sync, my breathing, the float of my steps on the pavement, my relaxed arms, my speed--and as I approached the intersection of Kenilworth and East Boulevard I moved to a space of total effortlessness and breathlessness, overcome with the moment.

Something was happening--something so real, so raw, so momentous, it forced me to stop dead in my tracks at that intersection. The sounds of the city floated to the background, the street disappeared, and like tunnel vision I became fixated on the way the sun filtered through the leaves on the trees. casting the most distinct shadows on the pavement at my feet. I could hear my breathing, my heartbeat in my ears; feel the sweat flowing across my temples and down my back and chest; a surge of strength , power, presence lit me up--and in that instant my life changed. Call it what you want, but the darkness of the shame I had hidden away inside was warmed by a light of such power that for that moment I just was: present, pure, and worthwhile.

I was, if only for a moment, free of the Girl Box.

I still can't believe it. Sixteen years ago, I was empty, without purpose, alcoholic, and emotionally bankrupt. But...one day, one run, one moment, a building thunderstorm, and my life's path was dramatically shifted. The calling was strong and pulled me right into its powerful tentacles."

My story is only mine and is still in the making. I am never fully out of the Girl Box. It is a process, a peeling back of the layers to reveal the gem beneath. When I am afraid, tense, tired or angry I may go back inside, but I'm trying and I am always in search of a greater level of awareness. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of stories of the women, men and girls who are drawn to this program. None more extraordinary or glamorous than another. But uniquely theirs and now universally ours. The phenomenal growth of Girls on the Run can be broken down into small moments, like snapshots along a timeline. Yet, when I consider each of those moments...those stories...together, they fit perfectly like the pieces of a puzzle or the patches on a quilt. The cobblestones of our stories emerge upon the Girls on the Run path and magically take me, our program, our coaches, volunteers, corporate sponsors and the girls we serve to our next steps, singly and together,toward a new level of awareness.

The gratitude is overwhelming. To have known such despair--paralyzed by my fear back then. And now--well, now I am not fearful anymore. I've learned that if I just take a step forward, as we teach the girls in our program to bravely do, the cobblestones will, without fail, always appear.

Funny the Way It Is

"Funny the way it is, if you think about it
Somebody’s going hungry and someone else is eating out
Funny the way it is, not right or wrong
Somebody’s heart is broken and it becomes your favorite song"

Dave Matthews

Stories. We all have them. We have our stories, stories about our friends, our children, our partners.

I’m always struck by the stories of our girls. This year I had the opportunity to attend at least half a dozen of our New Balance Girls on the Run 5k’s around the nation. Every girl, every mother, every father, every coach, every council director has a story for their day. An empty, often unoccupied physical space is transformed for several hours into a space in time where memories are made and life’s chapters unfold. A starting line, balloons, music, finish line barriers and volunteers magically arrive a couple of hours before the stories begin.

That's where I met Maddie. She is in Girls on the Run.

She had just completed her first twelve-week session. She has a school of tiny freckles swimming across her nose and stands about four feet high—she’s tiny, even for a third grader. She has dirty-blond hair down to her waist that she always wears loose.

Maddie's mom pulled me to the side, moments before the run started to share with me that she and her husband had separated two weeks before the final New Balance Girls on the Run 5k. He moved out, for reasons Maddie doesn’t understand now—though she may one day, mothers’ can’t explain the details of that story to a third grader.

Maddie can’t put words to the separation yet, though she knows that her life is different—that her mom is sad and her dad is gone—and, while the voice of it hasn’t come to her yet, the expression in her eyes can’t hide the fear, the lack of understanding, the feeling of suspended time, the unsettling of it all.

Maddie’s mom and dad came to watch her run in her big event. They saw their little girl finish her first 5k. They saw determination in her eyes—a blessed substitute for the anxiety she had carried there lately. I saw Maddie’s mom cry and watched her father try to be stoic. But they were there for her to support that little-girl spirit, to watch this child-soul float across the three miles of asphalt.

I took their picture at the finish line—all three of them. Maddie's dad asked me to take it, Maddie sandwiched in the middle.

I wonder what expression the lens caught. Did it see the truth behind their eyes—their love for her little life and the turmoil of their own?

Maddie will remember that day—that story—forever. Mom and Dad came together for her. They put aside their own drama to watch her do something that allowed her girl-spirit to rise above the confusion—for 3.1 miles anyway—to jointly welcome her to the finish line in spite of the angst between the two of them.

That story will be memorialized in the photo that I had the privilege of taking. My hands captured that picture, framed it in the lens, held the camera steady, and directed...

“One two, three, cheese.”

Five minutes of my life and years of theirs.

"Lying in the park on a beautiful day,
sunshine in the grass, and the children play.
Siren’s passing, fire engine red,
someone’s house is burning down on a day like this?"

Dave Matthews