The following is an excerpt from a chapter in the book. It's about running and while there is a whole other part to the chapter that I am leaving out of this, it is about a period of time, between my 8th grade year and my freshman year. Needless to say I ran everywhere. I could tell you the distance in minutes of surrounding towns and could literally run for almost two to three hours without a rest, sometimes, depending on the situation I was going through it could be more. My freshman year, I ran a 2:09 half mile, 5:15 mile, and a 10:30 two mile, I guess you could say my pacing was pretty good.
I run, but I am not a runner. I run as the blur of bricks facaded houses fade to thick oaks, past the cars, through the center of town in front of the buildings that show the form of one step in front of the other, up the hills until there is only the country. Through rows of cornfields, until I feel that I can reach the horizon. I fail to notice I'm tired, fail to notice the distance, my lungs rush with the freedom of being alive. I run not to freedom but to anything, anything different from the average view of the things that remind me what I am.
The steady rhythm of the rise and fall, of foot meets pavement drove me further into a trance that pushed the failure of me far from my mind. No one could do this, no one could see the things I've seen in these places, the rolling hills dissolve into the line of heaven and earth outside small town Wisconsin, where farm fields rushed the sunset, standing out as cardboard houses on a game-board world, pawns standing as obstacles for the sun to reach. This was my place, the quiet hills, where I could leave, but choose to stay.
The mist of a morning, through the fresh summer air would turn to the dusk of the evening through the crisp fall twilight. Seasons would change and every day I could run as far as I wanted. No one would care when I returned or where I went. The voice of who I said I could be would echo loudly in the silence of being alone with myself, while competing against the failure I thought I was. And when the thoughts got too complicated, when it seemed to hard to sort the feelings from reality, I turned around and ran, with the rhythmic steps of one in front of the other, till it was me and nature, till it was me verse the pavement, till the world made sense, till I knew I would win. I run, but I am not a runner.
From Wanderings of a Broken-Hearted Boy.
I look forward to sharing more with you as the story continues to develop.
Love it :)
ReplyDelete