JOGGING DISSOLVES FACADE,
REVEALING THE GENUINE SELF
I am most myself when running — most human, most friendly, most approachable. With my hair stuffed into a faded baseball cap, ragged T-shirt and shorts decorating my body, and 30 SPF sunscreen my only makeup, all the barriers, props and attitudes I wear in daily life are stripped away. I do things I might not otherwise do.
Like greeting everyone I pass — from tall, gorgeous guys I find too intimidating to approach in real life, to homeless people huddled in bus stop shelters I normally avoid making eye contact with.
I reveal things I don’t usually reveal. Like my stomach. I peel off my T-shirt at mile two, stuff it into the waistband of my shorts and run the remaining six with the midriff I’m not so fond of blatantly exposed for all the world to see. Unabashedly, I share the most intimate details of my bodily functions with running companions as if they were medical doctors. If one of us accidentally passes a little you-know-what, we don’t die of embarrassment. We say “excuse me” and keep running.
A hidden talent
I also spit. It’s not a terribly ladylike activity but I must confess I feel a secret pride when said spit hangs together and soars a particularly long distance. It takes a certain talent.
Before I was even a teenager, the world began bombarding me with information on how to put my best image forward: what to wear, what to say, how to act. Browsing the beauty and fashion pages of Teen magazine, I subconsciously absorbed a cardinal truth: that the world would, to a large extent, judge me by my appearance.
At 12, I became convinced that dangling trinkets from my earlobes would make me irresistible to the sixth-grade boys. After weeks of begging, Mom finally let me punch holes in them (my ears, not the boys). Next, I decided my mosquito-bite breasts required support, so off we went to the girls department at Macy’s. The womanly delight I expected to feel that first Maidenform day was abruptly eclipsed by the suffocating pressure around my rib cage. All day I fantasized about unhooking the clasp and taking a deep breath.
As I grew, so did my beauty essentials: Eyebrows got plucked. Legs shaved. Hair highlighted. Fingernails polished. Undereye circles concealed. Thin lips lined to appear fuller. Not to mention control-top pantyhose and toe-crushing pumps (and I thought bras were constricting).
A facade
For romantic occasions, I desperately hunted through the Victoria’s Secret catalog for lingerie that might fit the breasts that had yet to outgrow the girls department. When the brown box arrived, I’d hurry into the house, shut the blinds, suit up, and cautiously approach the mirror — always to discover an impostor staring back. Back I’d jump into my sweatpants and Bay-to-Breakers T-shirt.
All the adornments I’ve been deluged with over the years are supposed to make me look smart, attractive, sexy or some other sought-after characteristic. While they sometimes do, they also distract me from who I am inside — and from other people. How can I make eye contact when I’m busy checking my appearance in every store window?
Running strips away the veneer, brings me back to the basics. With my legs striding powerfully beneath me, sweat-drenched ponytail rhythmically swatting my back, it’s just me out there. No perfume. No WonderBra. Simply a woman with strong legs, who knows how to spit, who isn’t worried about the wind whipping her perfectly blow-dried hair into a frenzy.
I feel real when I run.
Which is why I often put off showering for hours afterward. I meet friends for coffee. Chat with neighbors. Sing at the top of my lungs with the car windows wide open. Raw, exposed, I may look like a Glamour “Don’t” but I feel beautiful in a way I don’t when I’m all gussied up like a girl. And I’m in no rush to rinse that feeling down the drain.
Admittedly, I still get caught up in my appearance sometimes. I’m a woman. It’s hard not to.
But my running self is always inside me. With each mile I log, she gets stronger, reminding me of who I am, what I’m capable of, not to take myself too seriously. She seeps into my non-running life.
Like last week at the grocery store. Instead of staring at the ceiling when I spotted a cute guy coming down the cereal aisle, I took my eyes off the Cheerios and said “Hi!” right to his face. How’d I get up the nerve? I imagined myself in baggy old running shorts, half-way through a 10-mile run, bangs plastered to my temples with sweat.
published thursday, april 22, 1999, in the san jose mercury news; published march 1998, in runner's world magazine
copyright 1999, 1998 jessa vartanian . all rights reserved
