i've never considered myself an athlete. As a kid, i liked riding my bike - but more as a mode of transportation than an athletic endeavour. & it's not that i wasn't fit. It's physically demanding to be a mother to a gaggle of children - and my arms got strong carrying big fat babies around. It's more that when i thought of myself, i thought of myself as more of an artist. i expressed myself in music or words - and it always felt like that kind of poetry was juxtaposed with the type of person my husband is - i've always seen him as an athlete: strong, coordinated, fit & even graceful.
But then i started running.
i had been working out, getting fun muscles. My eighth baby was sleeping through the night, and i felt the season turning. I couldn't write about my life freely, as it was so intertwined with the lives of my teens - and music had changed for me too - always inconveniencing an already loud, chaotic household with even more noise... and so one day, i went to the park across the street and ran up and down the hill. It was dark out - and i think i was listening to TØP with earphones... i wasn't wearing a baby carrier, or pushing a stroller. I wasn't annoying or embarrassing anyone if they couldn't see me. I wasn't exposing anyone by writing on the internet. I wasn't even stewing about anything at all. I was just running up and down a hill, chest exploding, gasping for breath, throwing my hands in the air and dancing like a lunatic in the half light of dusk when i got to the top. I think i was wearing jeans and sandals.
From there it progressed. Run. Walk. Stumble. Tendons screaming, blistered feet, losing toenails, tracking devices, running routes, injuries, running friends, speed work, hill work, tempos, winter running, races... There was something about the *poetry* of running... that was allowing me to become. It was the physical wrapped around the emotional and spiritual man. The hard work felt like it's own reward. i wondered if there was something cool that i was unwrapping in my inner man, just by wrestling it all out?
I think it has been around 6 years since i started running... and in a few days, i'm set to run my third marathon. As is pretty standard for me, i feel absolutely awful the week of a race. i feel emotional, my body feels terrible, i question every decision that has brought me to this point, i fight with myself like at no other time. i feel certain that i hate racing, and i feel almost certain that i hate running. So, today i went out to the forest with Elmer for a little trail loop. i just needed something easy to get in a couple of kms to keep me loose, and he loves biking with me. He was leading when my toe caught on a big root and i found myself airborne. It was one of those falls where you're pretty much horizontal and then when you land, you skid along on your belly for several inches before coming to a complete stop. i lay there in the dirt for several minutes mentally checking myself over before deciding i was probably ok, but even as i lay there, i felt like a jar of pickles that someone turns over and bumps on the counter in order to pop a stubborn seal. Something inside me released as i felt the dirt between my fingers - the ground cradling my whole body.
I've never considered myself an athlete. And that's probably because i thought that in order to be one, i'd be separated from that poetry that colours how i view the world... But no; it's all a part of this constant working out - this becoming - this transformation. It's helped along by all manner of physical triumphs: growing up, childbirth, breastfeeding, sleep deprivation, injury, aging, healing... falling on a trail... and getting back up again.
So i'll run. i'll sing, write, cry, laugh and fall.
& i'll become.
