We've finally had a little blast of winter over the past few days. Nothing like the winters I lived through in Boston, with snowstorm after snowstorm in 2015, I learned how to adapt my morning runs to the snow (running on cleared paths and more indoor runs).
I was off at ParkRun yesterday and decided to run a bit more on the grass than on the footpath, partly because I'm trying to be kind to my knees and partly because it was just nice to hear the crunch of the frost underfoot. Boston made me fall in love with running on cold, crisp mornings: going out in sub-zero (celcius!) temperatures, the cold air hitting my face, eyes smarting from the shock. As I write that it doesn't sound very appealing! But it really made me feel alive (buildings in Boston were often soporifically warm that I would probably have been asleep for most of the day if I didn't spend some time outside in the mornings).
Nowadays I struggle a little with mornings. In the same way that I struggle with the world I suppose. It's the fear of what lies ahead I suppose, of stepping out of bed and not recognising who, or what I've become. Experiences have changed me, but I feel that I left part of me behind in August 2015: I'm a shell of who I was. Running is one of the ways I am trying to re-engage with the word. My feet are on the ground, I see people on my runs even if I don't speak to them, I run the same route and can spot little things changing, glimpses of spring arriving. I run until I'm tired. On the mornings I feel like tears will come, I run until the tears are gone - cold mornings are great because I can blame icy winds for my red eyes. The funny thing about running is that it is one of the things that is, as I say, unpolluted - I wasn't able to run when all the weird stuff happened. I missed running so much that summer but now, knowing how I've consciously or unconsciously removed from my life things (and even people) that remind me of that summer, I'm glad I couldn't run because it means I still run as running was never "polluted".
I was off at ParkRun yesterday and decided to run a bit more on the grass than on the footpath, partly because I'm trying to be kind to my knees and partly because it was just nice to hear the crunch of the frost underfoot. Boston made me fall in love with running on cold, crisp mornings: going out in sub-zero (celcius!) temperatures, the cold air hitting my face, eyes smarting from the shock. As I write that it doesn't sound very appealing! But it really made me feel alive (buildings in Boston were often soporifically warm that I would probably have been asleep for most of the day if I didn't spend some time outside in the mornings).
Nowadays I struggle a little with mornings. In the same way that I struggle with the world I suppose. It's the fear of what lies ahead I suppose, of stepping out of bed and not recognising who, or what I've become. Experiences have changed me, but I feel that I left part of me behind in August 2015: I'm a shell of who I was. Running is one of the ways I am trying to re-engage with the word. My feet are on the ground, I see people on my runs even if I don't speak to them, I run the same route and can spot little things changing, glimpses of spring arriving. I run until I'm tired. On the mornings I feel like tears will come, I run until the tears are gone - cold mornings are great because I can blame icy winds for my red eyes. The funny thing about running is that it is one of the things that is, as I say, unpolluted - I wasn't able to run when all the weird stuff happened. I missed running so much that summer but now, knowing how I've consciously or unconsciously removed from my life things (and even people) that remind me of that summer, I'm glad I couldn't run because it means I still run as running was never "polluted".
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| Can't argue with this! |
But I know that I also miss the open person I was before. I miss my willingness to trust people, to be open with them, to take them at face value, to talk. Sometimes I think that I left all my words in a small, green room half way around the world. (My counselor would tell me that I didn't leave the words, if anything, they were taken from me.) Sometimes that person reappears: last summer especially, I was living with a good friend who would magically produce chai and ajwain paratha (every time he made them we had to look up the English for ajwain) and over tea and parathat we'd discuss everything under the sun, from politics to photography, to the perfection that is Barry's Tea!
Some day I'll settle back into life, and I'm sure that whatever it looks like it will involve running and tea.
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| Tea and paratha: perfect afternoon snack |
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