Watching

I'm still beating my path into the side of the hill, and with a daily crushing of the blades of grass, slowly, that path becomes evident. The tops and bottoms of the hill have been shorn, but the side is too steep for the common mowing unit; I push my way through the trimmings until my wheel bites into the tread it knows, and dare myself to ride down as slowly as possible. I hug the brakes and lean to keep from tipping forward, and the mothers dropping off their children for daycare flinch in shock when I finally come crashing over the curb in a scattering of toddlers and splashed mud.

An ambulance parks at the end of the road where my running trail exits the park system; I wonder who got hurt, until I notice that the drivers are just idling the truck next to an ashtray so they can smoke. I can't decide what's more ironic: the smoking ambulance driver, or the smoking fire truck driver.

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28 April 2014 17:43

Pelted

The sun was out when I finished tying my shoes, but by the time I had lost sight of the building, the first few drops of rain had already touched my skin. I thought I was imagining it at first, as the touch was so soft to be indistinguishable from hair brushing against my neck, a blink that came too fast. Slowly, the sky closed overhead once my feet started crunching on dirt and twigs, and I had resigned myself to getting drenched hours ago.

It wasn't until my turnaround point was in sight that the pouring rain paused, then shifted into pea-sized hail that pierced through the trees and pounded onto the path. I just folded my arms to put my exposed hands close to my body and pulled my bandanna over my ears; the dreads gathered to shield my head and neck. I ran through, me and the three other stubborn assholes on the trail, and pressed in and out of the wall of hail. So long as my heading was east, the tailwind kept the hail hitting my back, and not my face; when the path curved around and pointed west again, I ran with my hands over my eyes.

The sun was out again by the time I got back to my office. "It raining out there?" people asked me as I walked by, water and mud pooling out of my running shoes.

"Not anymore."

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22 April 2014 19:27

Equinox Waxing

The longer the days grow, the harder it is to talk about doing things when instead I am just doing things.

I am waging a constant battle between healing my fingerskin and shredding it again, and slowly, with each pass of the rope over my palms, more blood and sweat builds into the fibers and it becomes mine. I am playing an endless game of chicken to see if I can pedal harder than my nerves can handle, because I know my nerves will fail before my brakes. Every time my shoes lose their traction in the mud, I experience an infinite span of time in the moment it takes for my ankles to respond and recover my balance. Each sunset that rolls away from me, I breathe in the sky and know I am alive.

The mornings when I don't wake up sore from head to toe, I know I slacked off the day before. I can't stand to sleep or wait or rest because there never seems to be enough time in the day to pummel my way through everything I want to do. I don't feel like there's anything I need to do, and that's a luxury I know I should never take for granted.

I can't wait for the next day, but I'm never in a rush to get there.

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06 April 2014 18:25

Stubborn

I tie my key into my shoelaces so I don't have to carry it in my pocket; I've lost things through pockets before, especially small, dense objects that sit against a seam until it gives way. I can trust my ability to tie a knot that won't slip. If I couldn't trust my knots, I wouldn't climb on ropes.

Every time the skies open the minute I set foot outside, I laugh; my ego enjoys the feeling that I have been personally singled out by the weather gods and that in spite of everything, I enjoy it.

I press up the hill and my shoes slip on the rocks, and I whisper to myself, this feels meaningless now but it will make you a better person later.

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03 April 2014 14:56