“With each step the earth heals us, and with each step we heal the earth.” Thich Nhat Hanh
Travel all the way back with me to this past Monday. I know it is totally arbitrary, peppered with cultural blackmail, but it is pretty much where our week begins. A good start can be an omen, just like choking in a cloud of darkness can engender some trepidation for the seven ahead.
It felt like the last handful of stories dealt with some heavy shit, not something I run from, but even a little much for my, self-absorbed taste in word weaving. Now that I think of it, there was nothing purposeful about my Monday Morning Experience. It was just a wonderful accident, which I am ever so slowly, sharing with you.
Just as last year was running out of time, I started percolating internally about how to embrace the New Year. I was someone, who had been doing a specific kind of physical activity for over forty years, virtually every day, weather and geography be damned. Then, all of a sudden, I stopped.
I think running may have saved my life many, many years ago. Just for a little while each day, I could run away, without running away. After a while, it didn’t matter why I began, it was who I had become. No matter where in the world, I always had my running shoes and a pair of shorts. The very first thing I needed to sort out in any new location was my run the next morning.
I made a mistake thinking that my running self would go away quietly. In a way, I should have known better, but I was not an athletic kid. My specialty back then was leaning. I had to figure it out as a grown up, because of this running thing. Honestly, when I started thinking about the need for me to be out and about now, I did not make the connection to the amnesic, short circuit with my history. Running and I were inseparable for many, many years and it’s like I forgot, so much of me actually remembered, secretly stored away in my body memory.
Then, there is the music. When I started running, somewhere around ’76, there weren’t a lot of portable, music listening options. What I discovered over the years, as it became matter of fact to have your favorite music in your ears, is that I couldn’t do both. When I ran, that was all there was for me. To me, running required a total body commitment, or I wasn’t doing it, pretty damn simple.
Finally, we can get to Monday morning. I had already been walking to work and home several days a week for over a month now. It is part of the idea of being out, which quietly became my internal mantra for the coming year, blindly thinking it came out of nowhere.
Basking in this new found ignorance, I had bought a pair of running shoes, something I simply hadn’t thought about for at least four years. As soon as I put them on and took just one step, I was flooded with a sensory bonanza of missed feelings about that rock, solid commitment I owned for so many, many years.
I have been slow to adjust to technology, what a shock for an old guy! Ever since I discovered the sheer joy of music, sitting on the stoop of my home in Queens, NY in the Fifties, my ears and I have been embracing the magical enhancements of the sound experience.
In recent years, my most stunning, audio-orgasmic sensation has got to be having really, good speakers installed on Flaming Lips. It became a Double Love Experience. You’d have to ride a bike to even try and understand what that’s all about. I know I have tried to give it words in the past. I won’t waste my time or yours by trying to describe it right now. However, flooding me with my tunes at the same time, made me fall in love with both all over again.
Monday morning, I left for my walk down German Hill, then up and over on Rice Street to the brewery. During this past month of walking, the running spirit has awakened within and I have been loving it. My body has missed that kind of movement, even when I get stuck walking back up the hill at the end of the day. I push it, because it’s the end of the race for the day and I want to finish strong. To my way of thinking, if you are not really tired at the end of your workout, whatever it may be, you haven’t done the work.
I honestly was not prepared for how much I’d love having the musical accompaniment. I already told you that working my ass off in a run and listening to Fiona Apple didn’t do it for me. I was totally committed to my run and there was nothing else I had time for in the midst of it.
Walking and music are a luscious and soulful gumbo of being and doing. The very first time I stepped off into my orchestrated journey down the hill, I was kidnapped right out of my running shoes, stolen by the music. I actually feel it giving me strength in parts of my walk. It is very important for me to maintain the rhythm of my walk, part of my branded, running mania.
The precise Monday moment I turned to walk down the hill, launching into my stride, it hit me. Actually, it flooded me. I was happy. I was stunned by the feeling. At that moment, everything felt perfect. I was exactly who I wanted to be, doing what I wanted to do, where I wanted to do it. Is there anymore to life?
From Monday morning until now, I knew this was going be the story and we’re not quite done. I was walking home Friday night, knowing I was going to start this story when I got home.
The walk home turned into a step-after-step opera. I was walking into the white hot, dropping sun, squinting ahead. Tom Petty broke in, singing American Girl, driving me forward into the glare. When the time came to climb German Hill, Bela Fleck and his super energized banjo got me pumped. Turning the bend to my place, IZ came on, singing Hele On To Kauai. I was waiting for the applause, but it was just me and this wonderful, solo experience.
My story was complete before I even had a chance to write it. Those moments of happiness are fleeting; catching them, cupped in your hands, before they flutter away is just wonderful.