I slide on my worn gray Nikes with the orange swoosh, the soft shoelaces pulling through my fingers like my daughters braids, familiar and nostalgic. The hoodie I found smells slightly acridâ did I wash it last time I wore it? I make a mental note to throw it in the wash after this run. Stepping outside I catch my breath. Itâs the first day of May but the wind chill has dropped the temp by about 10 degrees. Spring in Utah is not for the faint of heart. Zipping my jacket all the way to my chin I pull the door closed behind me, already moving to stay warm.
My calves ache with a slight tension after yesterdayâs workout and I lengthen my steps, a more pronounced knee bend gently stretching them before I begin. With quickened pace the cement seems to spring back at me under my shoes, a game I play that helps me imagine the earth is pushing back, encouraging me to run. She loves the feel of soft, padding feet on Her, massaging her surface with musical rhythm. Tap, tap, tap I tell Her. Tap, tap, tap right back at you she says back in our secret Morse Code.
The letter that came in the mail today necessitated this run. It was burning a fire in my veins, under my feet. A birthday card is a strange thing to light a fire in you but when itâs the only thing you get all year it serves, not as a friendly gesture, but as a reminder of the loneliness of lost connections.
It seems like I just stepped out of my house but somehow Iâm already 2 miles away. I hadnât realized. Iâm training my breath by talking while I runâ yelling, actually. Ranting, cursing every other word, imagining what Iâd say if they were here instead of hiding behind that birthday card. The emotional release of it is as fulfilling as the endorphins from my run. I stop once but mostly sprint, past the kidâs school, around the neighborhood with the tennis court. Was I smiling when I left the house? Unlikely. But Iâm smiling now. My rage fueled me much farther than I usually go, around the big park with the tree swing twice instead of just once like usual.
I slow to stretch my calves again and catch my breath. Sweat drips along the side of my face, traveling slowly but determinedly, making trails like salty snails across my red cheeks. I tug on my hair tie and let the damp hair dangle, rustling my fingers through the wettest part at the base of my neck. I unzipped the jacket long ago, wind chill no longer an issue. Heating my body with movement and rageâ my favorite way to be warm. A cold shower before dinner and the sight of the letter doesnât chill me the same, feels like any other ad or bill or magazine that gets a glance and a toss in the recycle bin. I sit at the wooden kitchen table , now clean and calm and fed, with a steaming mug of earl gray tea and watch the starlings outside glide and dip and bend and sway, moving with freedom, with the knowing that the earth holds them, even in the air. That they have nothing to prove and only a beautiful dance to create.
