Running and Writing
The symbiosis of endless miles and words
I am a runner. I am a writer.
One foot in front of the other; one word after the other.
Sometimes I start and go as fast as I can for a short while. Sometimes I pace myself, and keep going as long as I can, often longer than I imagined I would when I set out. Certainly I’ve gone further than I thought possible over a decade and a half ago when I started, before I filled countless pages and wore out an untold number of pairs of shoes. The pace varies, but on I go.
There are days when I am so caught up in it that I become completely engrossed in mind, body, and spirit. I experience each step and each word as a profound gift, yet each individual word or step cannot be appreciated except as part of the whole. The act itself completely consumes me, and coming to the end leaves me only with the longing to start again and lose myself in it once more.
There are days when doing anything, moving a foot or a word, is excruciating, and the end cannot come soon enough. Each stride, each sentence requires exerting sheer will to move forward.
There are days when I feel that my performance is definitely worse than yesterday or the day before, but when I get to the end and look, I find that my feelings deceived me. Or maybe it was a little slower or a little less good. Well, really, who cares? I did it. I pushed through and ahead, as much as I could. I showed up. That was success. I tell myself that the day after the worst pain and struggle is usually the best outing of the week, if I just get up and do it again.
There are days when I start off well, then cramp up or fall down or get caught in an unexpected storm midway. Sometimes all it takes to change everything is stopping to take a few deep breaths. Sometimes I limp inelegantly to the end, gasping, with blood streaming from my knees, a reeling mind, dirty and drenched. Even so, there is the visceral satisfaction of persisting.
There are days when I over-complicate or procrastinate and then grudgingly betake myself to it at the end of the day to salve my stinging conscience. I ignore my own better self that knows it’s all about sticking to basics, trusting one’s habit and routine. Sometimes it is even more agonizing than I had feared because I ignored all the cues to do it earlier. Usually, though, I find myself surprised that it went better than I expected it to, and I wonder why I withheld myself from the pleasure and waited until I had too little time to enjoy it before I would have to stop.
There are days, even months, when I do roughly the same thing, over and over. There are other days when nothing will satisfy except exploring new places, not knowing exactly where I am going or how it will turn out in the end, but delighting in the challenge. The long months of reliable routine are what make the times of wandering and experimentation successful.
There is always a reason to wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow I will feel better, tomorrow I will have better ideas, tomorrow will not be rainy, tomorrow brilliant words will tumble out effortlessly, tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. I cannot surrender to the temptation. If I start believing I cannot do it, if I sit back and overthink, I won’t do it at all.
If too many tomorrows pile up, it becomes almost impossible to do it at all on any given today.
That’s where most of the world stays, without getting past this stage.
Other people nearby remarking on what I am doing are often (not always) unhelpful. Sometimes they stare at me in either awe or resentment because I am doing it. Sometimes they point and laugh. Sometimes they want to share tales and compare. Sometimes they get in the way, intentionally or unintentionally. They see me coming and step in front of me; they are unaware of how jarring it is to shift or stop suddenly. They treat me like a hero or a freak of nature; they demand a full explanation of why I do it. I am neither of those things, and I do not provide explanations that satisfy. I let them say what they want, and keep moving on. I cannot let them get in my head too much, to praise or to blame or to compare myself with them.
It can be nice, every once in a while, to read about the things I do or to observe how others do them excellently, but I cannot stop at that. In the end, nothing is the same as doing it myself.
On the vast majority of days, no one knows whether I do it or not. They won’t ask; they don’t see. Only I know.
What happens day after day only becomes evident over years of accumulated effort.
On that vast majority of days, I do it because it challenges and fulfills me, because it clarifies and strengthens, because it helps me express and channel joy, pain, love, fear, and hope.
It is these things that make me who I am: commitments I make that no one sees whether I keep, beliefs that drive me on, goals that push me, and ideas that I work over and over, day after day, mile after mile, page after page.
Step by step, word by word.
I am a writer. I am a runner.
