Imagine your run as a metaphor for your life. Do you run steadily, constantly improving your time, your speed, your distance while reading and buying everything you can get your hands on that promises to help you eek out a better performance from your body all the while wondering if you have what it takes? All the while wondering if you can be good enough and pouring every effort into proving that you are? Do you compare notes with running friends, secretly delighted if you can show better results, dismayed if you find they went further and faster? And finally, is the goal the main thing on your mind? Are you running to get to the end? I can’t really remember why I started running – likely it had something to do with a legitimate excuse for getting away from children and the ever present fear of the middle aged spread. But my countless miles up and down the same bit of road have led me to travel further into my self than I’d ever meant to go. My run has become a metaphor for my whole, enormous life. It is a fragment I can contain and study. It is a reminder and an instructor. It is a communion and an offering. Do I need to go further? I tried long distance and felt the short lived ego glow of knowing I could. But it left me drained for days, took enormous amounts of time away from my family and sparked nothing more inspirational in me than a grim sense of determination. Do I need to go faster? I tried that too and found that given a choice between stopping to watch the heartlifting flight of a soaring bird or watching my device to track my time, one option seemed to provoke an unexpected happiness in me while the other made me irritated and hot. And I did the buying and the reading too. I strolled around the shops, listened to the uber knowledgeable and deadly serious sales force, paid the laughable amount for shoes that were ultimately no better than the ones I picked off the rack in winners. I read the studies and found that every bit of knowledge could be countered with its equal and opposite bit of knowledge. And it all made me sleepy. I knew early on that I was an alien in this pressing, obsessing crowd of people called runners. So what does that leave me? This opting out of the competition and the exhibition? Joy. Just joy. No…joy and wisdom. By removing external measurements, I was free to explore my love of running. I love my short bursts of amazing speed when I get as close to flying as I’ve been yet. I love the scents of the seasons, inhaling them so deep into my lungs that they reveal new depths of awareness. I love stopping to be amazed by the still coolness of a forest and maybe, if the mood is right, taking a little wander inside to cool down and listen. I love when the perfect song comes through the wires and I have to dance – this comes with the added amusement of noting the quizzical looks of passing drivers. I love when creativity begins to flow and my mind enters a state of connection and clarity that it rarely knows when its trapped in a body, that is trapped within four walls, perpetually perambulating the same small circle known as the kitchen. I love that yoga and running feel like the ultimate physical union and I can address every tightness and twinge on the spot – reaching into pigeon or downdog or anything else my body yearns for – immediately. I love that no two runs are the same, like no two wildflowers are the same and each teaches me something about my body, my choices, my ego with its subtle tricks, and my connection to whatever it is that delights in my delight and had joy in my joy. This is why I am mystified by the pained expressions on the faces of runners I pass. What demon chases them to etch such misery on their features? Who pursues them with malice in its eyes? Ego, maybe? It could be so beautiful – this run, this life but if you want to see the beauty and feel the love you might have to let go of time and distance and acknowledge your gifts now instead of waiting to receive them at the finish line.
Posted on: Fri, 18 Jul 2014 16:09:06 +0000
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