better, finally

I swam this morning and it felt wonderful after three days off from all exercise because of my cold. This afternoon I had a meeting with our new priest that was cancelled--he had no idea that it would take him 3 hours to drive 120 miles home from the diocese camp in Aiken. The choice is to drive three sides of a rectangle on the highway or take back roads through quite a few towns. So I used my unexpected free time to go running despite a misting rain. Actually, I think I was inspired by the mist, which was like the weather for the half marathon, because I ran fast. I learned from the half marathon that I can safely push myself more than I thought.

I had missed the news that Betty Friedan died at the beginning of the month, until I saw an obituary in the Economist. I like the reflections on how the world has changed. "I never knew a woman, when I was growing up," Friedan writes, "who used her mind, played her own part in the world, and also loved, and had children." There were in fact some: Lillian Gilbreth, Ruth Patrick, Margaret Mead, and others, but women were told they had to choose. Thank Betty Friedan for the idea that we can have it all, even if it isn't easy.