running off the blues
I have no idea how many posts I’ve written either on or out of a revelation I had on a run. This much I do know, I can be covered in the metaphorical funk all day and the only moment that time seems to stand still is in motion, on a run. The funk is gone for that small moment. I am sure there is some Einsteinian truth to this. Just as much as the funk is gone, the clouds open up, and the air is clear during that timeless space on a run, it will close back in just as soon as I step out of the shower post-run. Regardless, I am ever grateful for that 30-60 minute window to breath.
Not everybody feels this way about running. As one friend said in a play on Eric Liddel’s overly quoted, ”When I run I feel god’s pleasure,” that, ”When I run, I feel like butt.” He hated it. Really. And to each his own. God didn’t make me fast, but there is a pleasure in a run.
Still, there is some kind of kinetic integration that occurs on a run. Usually, I am listening to Fresh Air or some book or teaching, and on the complete-turn-off-the-brain times, a my imix: Run Fool. Running and listening to Springsteen talk about life as an artist or, for the longer runs, the fragile first year of our country, I hear in a manner that is only found in running. Maybe it is the clearing of all other distractions, the rhythm of breathing that dials in my attention to see what I am hearing. However it works, I seemingly learn more about myself and the world in the condensed space of running than I do all day in the midst of the other stuffs. And often the results end up here in blog form.
I’m sure if I had a blog back In New Zealand, I would have posted nearly every day for all that I was learning. The same goes for my time in the Dominican Republic in ’99. Oh and getting lost on a run in those places makes it all the more fun – like running through the Hassidic section of Brooklyn, glared at or ignored by most, except for one huge bear-like Hassidic Jew clapping and cheering for me as I passed his table full of books.
No, there’s no moral to the story. Just an out-loud pondering over the grace of one little athletic routine I’ve had in my life for 20+ years.
And so I got to run barefoot in the park today. No, not like the Redford film, more like THIS.
Not everybody feels this way about running. As one friend said in a play on Eric Liddel’s overly quoted, ”When I run I feel god’s pleasure,” that, ”When I run, I feel like butt.” He hated it. Really. And to each his own. God didn’t make me fast, but there is a pleasure in a run.
Still, there is some kind of kinetic integration that occurs on a run. Usually, I am listening to Fresh Air or some book or teaching, and on the complete-turn-off-the-brain times, a my imix: Run Fool. Running and listening to Springsteen talk about life as an artist or, for the longer runs, the fragile first year of our country, I hear in a manner that is only found in running. Maybe it is the clearing of all other distractions, the rhythm of breathing that dials in my attention to see what I am hearing. However it works, I seemingly learn more about myself and the world in the condensed space of running than I do all day in the midst of the other stuffs. And often the results end up here in blog form.
I’m sure if I had a blog back In New Zealand, I would have posted nearly every day for all that I was learning. The same goes for my time in the Dominican Republic in ’99. Oh and getting lost on a run in those places makes it all the more fun – like running through the Hassidic section of Brooklyn, glared at or ignored by most, except for one huge bear-like Hassidic Jew clapping and cheering for me as I passed his table full of books.
No, there’s no moral to the story. Just an out-loud pondering over the grace of one little athletic routine I’ve had in my life for 20+ years.
And so I got to run barefoot in the park today. No, not like the Redford film, more like THIS.