The air was thick and moist. Through the foliage that was closing in like the clenching teeth of pinking shears, there was gray: endless, monochromatic gray. It wasn’t terribly warm, mid sixties perhaps, but the humidity would cause me to sweat. I learned last week that a leisurely pace would increase my distance with little effort, so I started off at a casual jog.
I didn’t think it was possible. It had only been a week since I’d passed by the primordial pond, the prehistoric water that hasn’t moved, hasn’t changed in hundreds of millions of years: the ancient stew with the impenetrable surface that takes life without conscience, yet provides it with the means to flourish.
I thought at first I was mistaken, that the surface wasn’t reflective, was never reflective, and had never mirrored the world above it. But I wasn’t mistaken. Just last week, when the two women had allowed their dogs a brief respite by the water’s edge, it was reflective; I know it was. The entire surface of the pond, aside from the beaver lodge and the trees that had fallen victim to the water’s corrosive powers, was, in fact, mirror-like and perfectly still.
Today it was very different. The surface was opaque, covered in a layer of grayish-green oddly shaped discs. They’d all come up during the six days of my absence. A few small, untouched areas remained: uncluttered patches where insects could alight, creating concentric rings of gentle movement. As I passed I imagined my feet evoking the same response. When each touched down, circles traveled slowly outward from their center, as if the ground was smooth and coated in a thin layer of glycerin. I could feel the pond’s surface and was tempted to veer onto it, but logic kept me on course.
Looking ahead along the trail, slivers of hazy sun made their way to the ground, creating a series of illuminated portals, giving added perspective to the narrowing path and shrinking foliage.
On my return trip past the pond, more signs of life revealed themselves. A tree, freshly gnawed but not eaten through: its flesh still warm, still fibrous, meaty and the color of fresh mango. Then two others flanking the first only inches away. They were reduced to stumps, but with the distinctive conical shape capping them both. Further along, the remains had weathered and grayed, but the evidence was the same. Just then, toward the end, another beaver lodge. Evolution continues: a world exists here, an entire civilization whose story is told by what can be seen of what once existed, and what was here only moments ago.
I felt comfortable. Despite my somewhat brief encounter with sleep last night, I knew I would go on today: how far was a subject I knew as little about as I did the fragile eco-system occupying the ooze a couple of miles back. Gnats and mosquitoes were out in force and much as I tried to forget my physical presence, the couple of bites on the back of my legs wouldn’t allow it.
The trail gave way to the wooded parking area, and then to the asphalt path that is open to the sounds of traffic and nearby homes. This was territory I’d covered dozens of times last year, before deciding to risk the hazards of the dark and sinister looking path through the woods. I would be adding; building up to whatever might be next. I began to think about a marathon again and wondered if I shouldn’t go to the end, take the morning out to eleven miles: but as before, I wasn’t properly equipped for the distance, not even thinking to place bottle of water in a strategic location.
I would turn around just beyond the bridge, a mile or so short. Although I could see what looked to be the upper lot from my position, I knew it would be unattainable. As I headed back along the farm toward the guardrail that always seemed to signify the end, I knew I’d made the right decision. I hadn’t noticed the breeze on the way since it was at my back, but now it was hitting me directly in the chest, making the last mile or so that much more strenuous. I put what I had into the dash for the center lot, ending with enough left to walk it off for a half-mile or so. Perhaps next week I’ll be better prepared, and not shy away from those two other miles, those sirens who tried their best to lure me to their rocky coast.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Forgotten
I wanted to say something as I passed. I wanted to ask them if they knew this was the very spot where life on earth had begun, that all of evolution crawled from this particular bog. That’s why I run here, I would tell them, to visit my distant relatives. Why couldn’t it have been here? Why couldn’t this place have existed before we were here, before anything was here, even before the Rusty Wheeled, Deflated Tire era of mankind, a remnant of which lies just upstream.
The two women stood by the swamp while their dogs’ curiosity fractured the pristine mirror of the water’s surface. I wanted to say these things to them, but instead I simply offered a friendly “good morning” as I passed. The pond was visibly different: felled trees lay partially exposed in the water, slowly decaying, feeding the next. A beaver lodge, large enough to comfortably accommodate five healthy adults and a few children towers in the center and the water seems more impenetrable than I remember. The place has evolved in the year since I first began to understand; unfortunately, I feel as if my own evolution has stagnated.
As the pond narrowed to sluggish stream and the trees drew nearer to the edge of the path, I listened. The rhythm of my footsteps moved from the snapping and popping on coarse gravel, to near silence on the bare, dense and moist soil, to the familiar soft crunch of the finely ground, black shale that covers much of the trail. A light wind moved air without sound over the hollows of my ears, and birds that were not there before began tentatively speaking to each other from the cover of branches. My easy pace gave me the feeling I could go on indefinitely.
I almost didn’t come today. I felt tired earlier and I’d hedged; maybe I’d run the four-mile section I thought, or maybe only two, or maybe nothing at all, or maybe I’d drive to the lot and then decide. Once there I was certain I’d do something, maybe.
The parking area was nearly full when I arrived, just a few spots left at the end where large tree roots abbreviate the undesignated spaces. I looked north toward the paved trail, and the potential for just under four and a half miles, then I looked south, through the woods to the railings of the first bridge, and the thoughts of the hill falling away and the pond and the markers at point five, and one point five, and the other end and I started off that way slowly, cautiously, unconcerned about time, or distance, or whatever else I had to do today. I decided to run at the pace I used to, when all I wanted was to finish, when all that mattered was the act, the doing: the feeling and the seeing, and the understanding that came with it.
I’ve spent the last year looking ahead and looking back, checking my race times, striving, wallowing in the misery of an unchanged and seemingly unchangeable situation, never feeling as if any of it was enough, as if anything I could do would ever be enough. The year has erased my memory.
I looked down just in time to spot a manure pile and a small, flower print hat. I dodged them both and moved on. The halfway point came quickly: I turned and began the three-mile trip back to the parking lot. Just ahead, the sun penetrating the spring canopy fell in unfocused, unconnected blotches on the path. I thought of Seurat: I thought of how this scene was creating itself from light and tiny specks of gravel and dirt and forest debris, and how his simple voluminous shapes could never approach the depth and the density and the subtle shades of what lay beneath my feet. Above me the sky that brought the light that penetrated the canopy was a bright, uniform blue, almost as if all this was housed inside of a perfect hemisphere.
An elderly couple on bicycles came toward me. The man held the colorful hat in his hand. He asked how far I was going. All the way back to the parking lot, I replied without stopping. He handed me the hat as we passed: “there’s a woman with a baby walking along the trail, she lost this without realizing”. I saw her on my way, I said as I grabbed the hat with my right hand.
The pond returned and I retraced the awkward steps that avoided the water spreading across the trail. It seemed as if the people I had passed along the way had all vanished, or had turned back shortly after our encounters. I was alone, keeping to my pace, moving easily, gripping the hat firmly, seeing, smelling, tasting, breathing.
It took some time before I spotted the woman with her child in tow. He or she was in a backpack, explaining how the hat could have been lost without the mother’s knowledge. I said something as I handed it to her, what it was that I said is only vague memory now. She also spoke.
Something changed as I released the fabric. I suddenly felt as if my legs were being pulled, as if I wasn’t running at all, but some thing, some force was drawing me forward. It was a sensation I’ve never felt before. There was a weightlessness about me: I was a marionette on strings, my knees moving higher than they would ever need to, my feet never actually touching down.
The last half-mile or so was cushioned by soft, decaying leaves that lined the forest floor: once living parts of trees that now fed the roots of those same trees. I tried to feel the hair falling from my head and then being drawn back into my veins through the soles of my feet.
I looked ahead, trying to spot the second bridge, not knowing if I was even close, and in doing so stumbled on a protruding root. Don’t look too far ahead, I always told myself, you’ll get there eventually, and never look back, you might stumble and fall. The words I’d relied upon were spoken metaphorically, of course, but here I was, literally looking too far ahead, and literally tripping and nearly falling. It was almost comical. Everything I’d learned during that final run last summer: all of the knowledge that brought me one step closer, or one step farther away from understanding, I would have to learn again.
Normally, when I begin a run I have a goal in mind: a time, or a distance, or both. Today I had neither. Success and failure wouldn’t be making appearances, even in cameo roles. If this day had not been unscripted, I would have focused on the unimportant and the mundane and continued on without ever realizing all that I had forgotten.
The two women stood by the swamp while their dogs’ curiosity fractured the pristine mirror of the water’s surface. I wanted to say these things to them, but instead I simply offered a friendly “good morning” as I passed. The pond was visibly different: felled trees lay partially exposed in the water, slowly decaying, feeding the next. A beaver lodge, large enough to comfortably accommodate five healthy adults and a few children towers in the center and the water seems more impenetrable than I remember. The place has evolved in the year since I first began to understand; unfortunately, I feel as if my own evolution has stagnated.
As the pond narrowed to sluggish stream and the trees drew nearer to the edge of the path, I listened. The rhythm of my footsteps moved from the snapping and popping on coarse gravel, to near silence on the bare, dense and moist soil, to the familiar soft crunch of the finely ground, black shale that covers much of the trail. A light wind moved air without sound over the hollows of my ears, and birds that were not there before began tentatively speaking to each other from the cover of branches. My easy pace gave me the feeling I could go on indefinitely.
I almost didn’t come today. I felt tired earlier and I’d hedged; maybe I’d run the four-mile section I thought, or maybe only two, or maybe nothing at all, or maybe I’d drive to the lot and then decide. Once there I was certain I’d do something, maybe.
The parking area was nearly full when I arrived, just a few spots left at the end where large tree roots abbreviate the undesignated spaces. I looked north toward the paved trail, and the potential for just under four and a half miles, then I looked south, through the woods to the railings of the first bridge, and the thoughts of the hill falling away and the pond and the markers at point five, and one point five, and the other end and I started off that way slowly, cautiously, unconcerned about time, or distance, or whatever else I had to do today. I decided to run at the pace I used to, when all I wanted was to finish, when all that mattered was the act, the doing: the feeling and the seeing, and the understanding that came with it.
I’ve spent the last year looking ahead and looking back, checking my race times, striving, wallowing in the misery of an unchanged and seemingly unchangeable situation, never feeling as if any of it was enough, as if anything I could do would ever be enough. The year has erased my memory.
I looked down just in time to spot a manure pile and a small, flower print hat. I dodged them both and moved on. The halfway point came quickly: I turned and began the three-mile trip back to the parking lot. Just ahead, the sun penetrating the spring canopy fell in unfocused, unconnected blotches on the path. I thought of Seurat: I thought of how this scene was creating itself from light and tiny specks of gravel and dirt and forest debris, and how his simple voluminous shapes could never approach the depth and the density and the subtle shades of what lay beneath my feet. Above me the sky that brought the light that penetrated the canopy was a bright, uniform blue, almost as if all this was housed inside of a perfect hemisphere.
An elderly couple on bicycles came toward me. The man held the colorful hat in his hand. He asked how far I was going. All the way back to the parking lot, I replied without stopping. He handed me the hat as we passed: “there’s a woman with a baby walking along the trail, she lost this without realizing”. I saw her on my way, I said as I grabbed the hat with my right hand.
The pond returned and I retraced the awkward steps that avoided the water spreading across the trail. It seemed as if the people I had passed along the way had all vanished, or had turned back shortly after our encounters. I was alone, keeping to my pace, moving easily, gripping the hat firmly, seeing, smelling, tasting, breathing.
It took some time before I spotted the woman with her child in tow. He or she was in a backpack, explaining how the hat could have been lost without the mother’s knowledge. I said something as I handed it to her, what it was that I said is only vague memory now. She also spoke.
Something changed as I released the fabric. I suddenly felt as if my legs were being pulled, as if I wasn’t running at all, but some thing, some force was drawing me forward. It was a sensation I’ve never felt before. There was a weightlessness about me: I was a marionette on strings, my knees moving higher than they would ever need to, my feet never actually touching down.
The last half-mile or so was cushioned by soft, decaying leaves that lined the forest floor: once living parts of trees that now fed the roots of those same trees. I tried to feel the hair falling from my head and then being drawn back into my veins through the soles of my feet.
I looked ahead, trying to spot the second bridge, not knowing if I was even close, and in doing so stumbled on a protruding root. Don’t look too far ahead, I always told myself, you’ll get there eventually, and never look back, you might stumble and fall. The words I’d relied upon were spoken metaphorically, of course, but here I was, literally looking too far ahead, and literally tripping and nearly falling. It was almost comical. Everything I’d learned during that final run last summer: all of the knowledge that brought me one step closer, or one step farther away from understanding, I would have to learn again.
Normally, when I begin a run I have a goal in mind: a time, or a distance, or both. Today I had neither. Success and failure wouldn’t be making appearances, even in cameo roles. If this day had not been unscripted, I would have focused on the unimportant and the mundane and continued on without ever realizing all that I had forgotten.
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