songs of experience

Its been a while since I’ve written. I was out visitng my daughters who live with their dad in Columbia, Missouri over the summer. While there, my ex asked me if I wouldn’t mind running with one of his former Mizzou colleagues who was in town overnight. “Sure, ” I said, “How fast is he?” Turns out he was plenty fast for old and slowing me and we hit the MKT trail at a brisk pace that never let up - nor did the conversation. Now, remember, I had never met this guy before in my life … and I don’t even know his last name or where he comes from … but for 50 straight minutes we talked about his girlfriend, my marriages, his moving to England, my dream of going back to grad. school, his future book on Sports films, my favorite jock movie [National Velvet ... "a girl and her horse?" Yes, but so much more. "Like what? How lovely Elizabeth Taylor's hair looks?" "You obviously haven't seen the movie..." which he hadn't, he admitted, only the pitiful modern version called, "International Velvet"], and then we quickly covered my seejanerunners, his brother, my daughers, his PR’s, my lack thereof, our both needing to run for it’s medicinal effect [to stay off of Zoloft, God- willing], our current running goals. “Ever run Hood-to-Coast?” Three times. Another good story. And another and so on and so on until 50 minutes had flown by.

THIS is the thing I love about running. Ours is a community of familiar strangers. Not unlike the “stranger phenomenon” that occurs on airplanes - where you talk and talk on a 6-hour flight to Gatwick, and then never see the person again - Mark and I ran along staring straight ahead and, because we didn’t have to look each other in the eye the way truly intimate people must, we were able to open up and be intimate or “familiar” in that sacred running space.

When I got back to my ex’s house, he said, “How was the run?”
“It was awesome; we talked about everything!” I gushed.
“Yeah, Mark’s a bit of a running geek.”

As my current husband would say, “Aren’t we all.”