Few things exist in this world that fill my heart with more happiness than fall in Indiana.  In the words of George Eliot, “my very soul is wedded to it.”  I arrived after dark and so could not see much but wide open navy blue as my parents drove me home from the airport.  This was the last full week before the marathon, and I was looking forward to gathering up  all the love and beauty and magic that my little spirit could hold.

I woke up early, before sunrise, to let my Mr. Jones (14 yr old pomeranian) out.  If I don’t specify who Mr. Jones is people get the wrong idea.  I was so struck as I always am at how brightly decorated the predawn sky was.  So many stars!  It may sound silly to some, but when you have lived in Manhattan for nearly a decade, you swoon over this kind of thing.  I would wake up before the sun every morning thereafter to store up starlight.

It’s hard for me to express in words how I feel while running at home.  It is a completely different experience.  In one of my instagrams I explained that there is no need for headphones around here, you can hear your soul singing.  You can.  It’s the most beautiful sound.  These city ears – these city nerves find desperately needed peace as I run along country roads where barely a car passes.  If one does, the driver waves a friendly hello as though they know you and sincerely want to wish you a good morning run.  I mean it – this is how it goes back where I come from.  Everyone waves.  I could feel my city jade fading away.

Each run that I went on was more beautiful than the last.  I watched as the leaves moved through their fall performance.  Thinking about the marathon, about all of the amazing people that supported me and my cause,  about my family, and my childhood here while being surrounded by so much beauty would make me emotional.  Running and crying – I do this a lot these days.  Sometimes I’d be out there and I could actually feel Mother Nature carrying me for miles, filling me with gratitude.  I felt like the luckiest girl in the world to be doing exactly what I loved to do exactly where I loved to do it.  Home running magic.  Freedom.

This is where I am from, these are my roots, and no matter how far I shall roam, this will always be the place that my heart goes back to.  I will always be an Indiana girl.  This is the place where my dreams were made.  It was here as a little girl I slept in a room with city skyline wallpaper and dreamt of one day living in New York, even of running the New York City marathon!  I have no idea where these lofty ideas came from.  I even slept on a top bunk with my ‘office’ below as though I knew that one day my living space would be severely limited.  I did know.  I could see it so clearly.  It wasn’t something that I talked about.  I think the reason being was that I knew the kind of doubt my ideas would understandably receive.  A small town girl from the Midwest running the New York City Marathon, living in the West Village with Carly Simon as a neighbor, cultivating a modeling career that would last ten years after it allowed residing throughout Europe and Asia.  Right!  HA!  Dream on little one!  And I did.  I tore out pictures of  fashion models in magazines and kept them in my trapper keeper – I wanted to be those girls so badly.  I even remember in grade school buying a book at our annual book fair:  How to be a Supermodel.  It was the era of Cindy Crawford, Christie Turlington and Claudia Schiffer – the glory days of supermodeldom!  No, I never shared my wild dreams of high fashion and worldly travels.  I was a straight A student-athlete that talked about becoming a lawyer, but I knew in my heart that it would be different.  I can clearly recall day dreaming about how poor I’d be sitting on a New York stoop – so happy and free.  Now as an adult, I am so proud of little me for dreaming so big – so far out of bounds.

Sometimes you need to stop and look back.  Take note of where you started and how far you’ve come.  It has become so easy to get caught up in all of the lavish lives that others live in this age of social media, where we can compare ourselves to celebrities all day long and are left feeling disappointed and inadequate.  Don’t do that.  Put your phone down and look at real life because it is beautiful and we only get so long to live it, to love it, and to make it as magical as we want it to be.  Reflect on that little girl or boy and be proud of the woman or man you’ve journeyed to become.  Or maybe you’ve let that little guy or girl down, and if so, get out there and be who you always wanted to be when you were young and the world hadn’t placed its doubt and limitations upon you.  I totally did not intend to deliver that message but there it is.

And here I was, back where it all started.  I always go home in the fall.  My friends and I jump in a car and take to the backroads to take it all in.  We pack our cameras, our music, and our wine and go fall adventuring.  We tour small towns and photograph old barns and trees and countryside.  We let ourselves get lost in it.  I can say with all honesty that there is nothing that I enjoy more, and it is so simple and free. My friends back home mean the world to me and I hope they know how much I treasure our time together.  They call me Luli-girl, and this is where I can ‘Luli’ out.  Every single day with my fall family was so very special, but one epic day stood out among the rest.  It was as though the Universe and God and the stars all aligned to give us this most amazing fall day so full of beauty, love and laughter, and memory making.  It was the second fall without our favorite friend/husband/father/leader, and I know that we honored him on his birthday in the most beautiful, unforgettable way.  Wait, I’m wrong.  We were far from being without him for he was surely there – in all of it, smiling back at us.  And I also know that that day – and every day, was his gift to all of us.

And so the week went.  I could go on and on but we have a marathon to run.  Somehow I had managed to fill my tank in the most perfect way.  I boarded my flight back to NYC on a Tuesday morning with the race just five days away.  Feeling emotional and nervous for sure, but mostly loved – so loved by my family, my friends, my home.  The tremendous amount of gratitude that filled my heart for all of them I knew would not only carry me 26.2 miles, but much, much further than that.

Cheers,

Vino Bambina