On running in difficult times & week 37 of 52

how we release when we forget our narratives

Let’s talk about it …

Life is hard.

We have global warming/weirding and the impacts of natural disasters destroying cities and changing our ability to breathe clean air or access necessary ingredients.

We have unstable/mentally ill leadership and asymmetrical resource control increasing at rapid speeds across the globe.

There’s ongoing war and hatred that takes many forms and is all ugly.

And on a personal level, there’s the steady reminder that these bodies we reside in are temporary organisms that are as capable of pain as they are of pleasure.

It’s enough to make us want to give up, to think there’s no summit. And yet …

“The real meditation is how you live your life.” —Jon Kabat-Zinn

Life is full of wonder.

Like many people I know and love, I’m grappling with the big-picture issues that seem to dominate our shared human narrative. Meanwhile, I found some hope this week after a slow but purposeful run.

Despite the bitter temps and a mild achiness of middle age, I ran. I watched the world move toward me and fall out of view, constantly changing, and all I could hear was the wind and the sound of my breath. I barely ran two miles, but adrenaline-filled clarity arrived.

This run helped me to remember something fundamental.

Photo by Bruno Nascimento

When I was 9, a year older than depicted in the image below, I ran a 5-mile road race on the north side of Columbus that was hilly and rough. It was a hot day, and I was in a bad mood.

In my kid mind, it felt like the world was against me. I truly felt like a victim. And while I didn’t even think about the larger problems of the world, like the fact that Reagan was implementing deinstitutionalization, which would put many mentally ill and unhoused people on the streets, or that greed was at the forefront of most decisions as materialism began to reign and lay the groundwork for future atrocities, I did have a real form of stress.

I was tired, in a bad mood, on a hill, and ready to quit.

Then I heard a voice from behind me. I looked back and saw a woman sighing. “I can’t do this,” she said.

She was twenty-eight or maybe sixty-eight. At 9, all adults were merely old. So I saw this “old” woman who appeared to be in pain, and I said, “We’re almost to the top.”

She glanced at my neon, animal print running pants (side note: they were pink, had paws on them, and epitomized my fashion tastes at the time) and smiled.

“No, I don’t think I can finish. I’m going to walk,” she said.

“Don’t!” I yelled at her. I moved my curly red hair away from my face as I slowed my pace, and I fell in line with her.

me, near the finish line (a different race)

What’s funny is that her dialogue was exactly what I’d been thinking, but the moment she said it, my entire thought process changed.

I began to teach her a breath practice I learned from my cross-country coach. “Just breathe like this: two inhales, then one long exhale to give yourself more oxygen,” I told her. I showed her how to do it, and we breathed together.

I hadn’t remembered that technique for myself, but I remembered it for her.

From there, she asked me about school and how often I ran. I found out this was her first race and she was doing it to get back in shape after feeling down and out, as she put it, for a long time.

We both finished the race, together, and at the end, we hugged.

I bring up this story because we can create a circle of self-pity and hopelessness when we think about the weight of bad decisions and the repercussions of an unjust world.

But, we can also forget our fears and burdens by remembering what we might offer someone else. And in so doing, we find the internal freedom to keep going.

Yes, we’re on the uphill right now. Maybe we’re almost there, maybe not. Either way, here we are.

Together.

“The practice of Zen is forgetting the self in the act of uniting with something.” —Koun Yamada

AYTL: If you feel like you’re out of sorts right now due to large and looming reasons, extend your hand to the first person who needs it and remember the strength of uniting. If we all do this - if we all do - well, just imagine.

Writing prompt: Paul Spangler began running in his late sixties and found community. By his late seventies, he was running 10 miles a day. He finished his 14th marathon at the age of 92. Write about someone or something blooming despite norms.

My three-day meditation course on going from worry to love is available here on Substack.