I like to run. There

July 09, 2003

I like to run. There are few things better than a run on the first day of some time off. We have chosen a regular summer and spring getaway spot that we’ve been weaving into our lives for the past decade. It is now a huge part of our collective memories and full of ritualistic behaviours. Each mundane element of home life is elevated to the status of magic rustic ritual: midnight trips down the trail to the outhouse, baths in the sulphur smelling water, two mile bike rides to use a telephone, and hanging wet clothes on the line. Perfect. Because we can’t go there too often the time is sacred and has only ever been compromised by the armour piercing projectile called “Craig’s schedule”. Last year we took an epic journey across North America and for the first time missed our summer time in our little hideaway. This year’s time has, therefore, increased its evocative value by a factor of two. Each dive in the ocean seems more transformative. The moon seems bigger. The sunburn seems to hurt less. The late night barking by a pride of sea lions seems like such a privileged disturbance. How beautiful the chain reaction reaching each rural mutt down some beautifully convoluted ladder of evolution. Its like a deviant Darwinian version of the emergency signal sent out in “101 Dalmatians”. One lies in bed half asleep and smiling. Awaking just as rested as if it never happened because each sleep is deeper.
This brings something powerful to the first run at the beginning of the hideaway days. Some run in groups. In packs. This is fun and social and provides for a feeling that bonds are being properly formed. When one is weaving drunken into the street with a “new best friend” and future plans are being tossed in the air like helicopter seeds its logical the bond may be transitory. If you’re running up the side of a mountain with every blood vessel widening and each sense sitting upright in its own battle station it seems like each word uttered means a little more. An economy of speech is necessary to adapt to physical limits. There is a tiny suggestion of shared enlightenment as you collectively exert yourself, stirring the same brain chemicals. This is constructive behaviour. You will feel better when it is over. If you are using it to recover from a hangover this reality is compounded. In this way there is little you are embarrassed to have said during a run.
The benefits of pack running being noted I must now endorse the solitary version of the pastime. In my world “the loneliness of the long distance runner” has less of a forlorn ring to it. I suppose there is no difference if you choose to walk alone but it seems to strip you more slowly to your elemental core. Its harder to imagine yourself as a Greek messenger taking life saving strategies from the brain trust in Athens to the battle front out on the bleached plains. The extent of your exertion can be directly figured into the success of the emerging democratic nation. You have an excuse to wear less clothing when running. This helps in that feeling of reaching your elemental self. Before Lyme disease and the West Nile virus running naked through the cool woods loomed large in my idea of a good time. One’s inner reflection seems magnified by the movement through an idilic setting. Our family hideaway, although rose coloured by fond memories, is possibly situated in one of the most physically beautiful places on earth. I have only visited twenty or so of the world’s countries, and spent way too much time in North America, but I would still cast a semi educated guess that what I say could be true. When most people enter a holiday paradise thoughts run to, “how can I stay here forever?” Some attempt this and find out that paradise isn’t just about natural beauty. They stay long enough to hate the seasonal visitors they used to be. Their smugness rings hollow. They discover that they need to somehow find more money to stay there if they have not developed skills in ceramic arts, jewelry making or the weaving of dream catchers. Money is easier to come by in places shored up with dirty concrete. So...we come back to the place once or twice a year.
The first solitary run on the first day plunges me into a state of self reflection that is almost overwhelming. My endorphins fire life’s questions to a white hot point. Everything comes into question and I keep running until I have enough answers and at least one elaborate roadmap for the future. In previous years much of my musing revolved around schemes to stay there so I could always run like a deer this through paradise. Later I settled into a comfortable understanding of this place’s value to my life. I realized that temporary stays were more valuable to me than a permanent residence. I’m a city mouse (see past musings). Now my runners reflections don’t even dally on those ideas. They are free to work themselves into the finer details of a year of being behind the 8 ball. Anyone who is busy knows what it feels like to constantly feel in a state of unraveling. That first run on that first day does more to make me feel that its all going to be OK than just about any of the year’s rituals (Christmas seems to be about the worst “unraveling accelerator”). The more unraveling I’ve done through the year, the better the hideaway run will be.
My runs through the woods near my house seem more centred around claiming perspective over that specific day or week. I can run out of the house and come back with a song idea or a parenting strategy necessary to get through that day -- for some reason running never helps me remember the birthdays of people I love. When I’m on the road the first run in a new town (or a town I’m familiar with but don’t live in) can yield great results but in the end I go back to a hotel room and remain too long in that “alone” state. My reflection treads water until it dreads what happens when you stop and sink. I can chum around with band members to keep it all positive but I can’t get that quick “idea into action” feeling I get from running instantly back into the family fold.
After the hideaway run you enter a group of people who are all wanting to feel a lot of the same feelings you are now emanating in a virtual corona of light. Isn’t that what we all want? Everyone to feel the way we feel? They are ready to go with you where you want to go. You are ready to go with them where they want to go. You will go home to the struggles and the unraveling with the realization that you can make it back to this day more and more often. Every now and again, when everybody’s schedules accidentally converge, you can feel it at home too.
I like to run.