It is a cold winter day on 28 December in San Diego--47 degrees at 9 am.  I am dressed in black shorts and a long sleeve orange shirt, determined to start training today for my 10 K. for Claire on 11 June.  The waves of the Pacific Ocean crash behind me, and I feel a burst of optimism.  I can raise money for this scholarship and do so by facilitating my own recovery from BED.
 
I feel I must set the right tone for this first run, and so I turn to classic hip hop: "I Go To Work" by Kool Moe Dee.  I was not "with it" enough to have listened to this song back in 1989, when it first came out, but it is a perfect start: "I go to work, like a doctor," the rapper begins, and then kicks in with:

On 12 December 2015, forty-eight year old Maryclaire Ward Paullis lay down in the lower bunk of her sons' bunk bed and took a nap from which she never awoke.  Maryclaire is survived by her parents as well as her four children--ages nine to twenty years old--and her husband, Jay, of twenty-one years.  While her immediate family mourned this unexpected tragedy, a community of hundreds also needed to deal with their feelings of sorrow and distress.  There is no doubt in my mind that dozens upon dozens of people, if asked, would today raise their hand and count Maryclaire, or Claire, as many knew her, as being among their three closest friends.  This is because Maryclaire had a gift for laughing out loud and leading others to do the same.  She made people feel special because she recognized their individual gifts.  And she saw enchantment in the ordinary, such as a crooked tree or a weather-beaten rock.  Such traits explain why I--a friend from high school--still counted her as one of my three best friends thirty years after our graduation...and eight years since I last visited the Paullis family in New Hampshire.   
 
In honor of Maryclaire I have decided to run a 10 K. race for charity in Portsmouth, New Hampshire on 11 June 2016.