My feet push off the ground. Blood pumps in my veins and pounds in my heart.
I know how to tear up a hill and how to fly when I’m tired.
I run all over town, but there is one run in particular that defines me.
It starts in a gorge that could break me. It doesn’t. I run up the stone steps, through the crevice the water has cut. Across the suspension bridge, a thread over the gorge. It is secret and misty. Down a long road, past Flatrock. The sun chases me along that road and through green farmland, rolling hills.
I cut through the wildflower preserve, through the grass and blossoms and rumbling bees, to Fall Creek, where the water is deep and emerald green and the cliffs are darkest gray.
I can live a lifetime in a long run.
This one begins at the jump.
I climb out of the water
cold and dripping
and I
begin to run.
A good run is like a good story. There is a journey—a trail through trees, a field where a tractor has made ruts packed-down and wide enough for a single person to run, stone stairs where you could slip and fall. Birds dart up from the long green and gold grasses dewed in the morning. The early-morning sun gilds the mossy stones, melts away the frost. Your lungs burn, your heart is thudding, your eyes are open to the world. There may be others with you. There may be no one at all.
You do not know how the run will end. There could be victory, defeat, disappointment, elation. There could be a moment where you are about to seize it all and someone you never even saw coming flies past you to claim the victory. You could be behind from the start, have to follow and try to catch someone mile after beaten-down mile.
But the deepest truth about running is that, when you run truly alone, it is not a race, it is not a story.
It is you.
I am running. I am almost home when it happens.
The light from the rising moon is of a particular clarity. In my head, I am singing theJuly, July Fieldingsong, over and over, to match the rhythm of my gait.
And then I hear
cicadas.
birds.
the hum of people.
A car passes me.
Another.
In this moment I know.
That I am always going to be okay.
And that I will never be okay.
I have felt these things before.
But now I know them. As sure as I know anything.
Both things are true. But one more than the other.
July, July Fielding.
