It is a good place to begin: With the body, where all things begin.
I'm a runner. I say this with both the shy modesty and overt pride. As a child, I was chubby and had asthma that sat on my chest and pressed like a fist squeezing my lungs free of air like helpless sponges. As an adult, a bike accident rearranged the bone structure of my hips and spine into a tinker toy jungle gym of arthritic joints. My doctor told me my abdomen would never heal into a structure capable of accommodating any sort of impact. I told him to eat my shit (I may have been a tad more tactful than what I remember...).
Being born into a clan of naturally stubborn and independent women, and being an individual extremely conscious of her physical health, I took up the sport both as a method of staying in shape, and to prove to myself that I could achieve the impossible. It took me nearly two years, but upon leaving Wisconsin my asthma had all but vanished and I was logging five miles a day at a leggy, quick-paced gait.
When one speaks of the West and its mountainous territory, the subject of elevation and breathlessness is one of common interest and intrigue; however, like childbirth, old age, cancer, most organic experiences of the body, really; understanding is achieved best by experiencing it for one's self.
On my first run, simply put, I. Could. Not. Breathe. "Flat ground," in Boulder, is really just a hill with a more gradual incline than the more common and impossible slope. I suddenly understood what the trail runners in my athletic magazines had meant in their descriptions of mountain runs so tiring they were almost hallucinogenic: I found myself drifting out of my body, imagining Boulder a curvaceous woman laying on her side, and I, some determined insect making my way up and over the steep slopes of her hips. That old and familiar fist grew fingers that wrapped around my neck; sprouted lips that blew ashes down my throat. Five miles was quickly reduced to two, and my confidence slowly followed suit.
In frustration and curiosity, I began researching elevation and its effects on the body, especially that of the runner. Amongst articles warning me of sleep deprivation, constant thirst and irritability (all symptoms experienced and explained), I stumbled across an article on runnersworld.com about Kay Ryan, present US Poet Laureate, called "I'm a Runner." Intrigued and inspired by this fellow writer and runner, I found her unintentional advice on incline jogging tucked into the center lines of the interview: "I go so slow that not even the hills could make me run any slower! I consider it running if there's any time at all that both feet are in the air."
Go slowly, gradually? This was not something that had occurred to me. It was however, and perhaps ironically, one of the reasons I came to Boulder: To accept, with slow and intentional gratitude, the natural flow of my capabilities as an individual, and use them to their full potential.
The next day I bundled up in ample running garb (integral, as the sun recedes behind the mountains at five o’clock PM and takes any warmth it offered with it) and allowed my stride to fall into a slow, but respectable, trot. It was something new: running not to prove something, but simply to enjoy the experience of running. I became aware of the intimate, micro-workings of my body: The tendons of my legs pulsating and stretching; my abs clenching; sweat pooling between my breasts, in the small of my back. I became aware of my body as an amazing machine; a proper essay: all parts communicating with one another to produce a cohesive, explosive conclusion. The experience was something easily described as natural, meditative, and almost Zen. I respected, for the first time, my own natural capabilities and boundaries; I found, in this raw acceptance of self, that I fell into the same space one enters when writing a good poem. Upon returning home, I had, once again, only covered about two miles, but they were the most satisfying two miles I'd ever run.
Maybe one of the most important lessons I am to learn here is congruent to the most important lesson I learned in writing poetry and prose: When to extend the metaphor, but--more importantly--when to slow down and take a breath.
Thanks, Kay.
No comments:
Post a Comment