Easy Go

// Steve Garner //

I have started running again, and I'm tentatively rejoicing. My fear is that I will crush myself. I want to approach this in a way that is healthy mentally as well as physically. That means focusing on form, on lightness and low impact, instead of distance or speed. It's difficult. My natural tendency is to land hard on my heels and my psyche.

Today I was listening to my body as well as talking to it. Between reminding my spine and stomach to stack straightly, and dutifully picking up my feet instead of pushing off from the sidewalk, I paused the internal monologue to check my status. Where is my breath? Where is it twinging? How do my soles feel about the ground?

Near the end of my course, I came to another long slope, a hill that wasn't a daunting prospect but an exhausting one. Cue internal whining. A different part of me said sternly, "Don't be lazy." I couldn't sort out what was genuine fatigue, a signal that over-taxation was nigh, and what was petty reluctance. The impulses refused to be separated. But I could identify the critical voice, because it was telling me frankly that I was weak and despicable for not charging up the incline. In defiance, I ceased my stride and started walking. I stayed vertical and pranced like a spooked doe in slow motion.

When I was in sixth grade, my class learned some of the ancient Olympic sports: javelin, discus, Greek wrestling, etc. A javelin is a long, pointed piece of wood. My teachers emphasized that how you threw the spear was far more important than how far you threw the spear. I remember a particular girl being commended for her grace, for the architecture of her movement. This was one of my first exposures to the idea that the process is more important than the product.

// Carole Raddato //

I'm a combative skeptic, so my response to that has always been, "Why?" (Imagine the question in a tone of bilious demand.) I've come to the conclusion that neither journey nor destination has any inherent advantage over the other; it's all about perspective. You can choose what your emphasis is. I have decided that it is healthier for me to stay grounded in the minute-to-minute actuality of my life. Not disregarding the future, but not privileging it over the current moment, as has been my tendency.

An example: I am going to take a sociology class this summer. In order to relax enough to go ahead and do it, I must suppress my worries: I'll never get a degree at this rate, so what's the point; I already have a humanities credit; this is a roadblock to becoming a self-sufficient adult... Instead, I want to think about learning, about the excitement of new knowledge.

My goal is to run with delight, to make space for myself between the steps. I want to saunter, well-pleased with myself, instead of rushing and tripping to catch up with an irrational ideal. Try as I might, it is impossible to flee from myself, to race out of this body and beyond this path. As my mother says, "Wherever you go, there you are." I am where I am.