Tuesday, March 23, 2010

SDG: One Stomp at a Time

It’s been a long time since I’ve gone out on a run around the neighborhood, and there are too many things I miss about it to count.  Apart from the sense of vibrant vitality, the rush of enegy, the pure somatic joy of making my body work the way it’s supposed to, there are plenty of things I grew used to seeing - landmarks I’ve come to recognize and appreciate in subtle ways, changes in the physical environment from hour to hour and season to season, the evolution of which gave me a sense of riding the catbird seat on time’s gentle juggernaut, and - of particular pertinence to this jotting - some characters I only saw and got to know while out pounding pavement. 

Whether they’re around at other times in other epicycles of my perigrinations I don’t know; I can say for sure only that I don’t notice them at other times.  They’re my running buddies, and when I’m not running, those relationships atrophy.  I don’t even notice I’ve missed them; there’s just a vacancy in my social environment that makes my world a little duller and my soul a little less full. 

These are people I like to see, but not necessarily ones I want to know.  The roller disco dude at 6th and JFK; the speed walker who bathes in perfume, the guy who walks his bike with his cat in the basket… they add texture; they’re environmentally entertaining.  When I no longer see them for a while, the “fun quotient” of my little world suffers somewhat.  Not so much as I’d notice it, typically.  Just enough so that, if they happen to come back into my life, I appreciate it. 

Which brings me to Stompdancing Guy.

SDG was a fixture of my park runs for several years. I’ve seen him on the east side of the park and at the west end miles away, in the rose garden and the museum concourse and all kinds of other spots too.  He was peripatetic, but consistent - and you must know by now how I value that particular combination of qualities.  I never sought him out and never wanted to connect withhim personally when I found him, but he cheered me up whenever and whereever I encountered him and that is worth a lot. 

SDG always presented himself in similar fashion: standing on a bench in knee-length jams and a stretched-out t-shirt.  His hair was shaggy and too long for the way it was cut, hanging darkly over his moon-like face.  His body was bulky with a round belly and heavy hands.  His calves were large and muscular as they emerged from the bottom of his oversized shorts, and his feet were shod in tired-looking running shoes.  Headphones or earbuds were stuck on either side of his head, his face wore a slack-eyed and beatific expression, and he. was. stomping. 

The motion was vigorous and regular, unvarying and emphatic.  One foot would slam down onto the bench on which he stood, and the other rose up to nearly knee-height, a big step that went nowhere as the up-foot came slamming back down again in place and the down-foot came back up.  Up and down, back and forth, body rocking, hair swaying, head nodding.  The action was as unvarying as the costume.  Whereever he was, he remained consistent.  I liked it. 

It’s been a while, as I mentioned, since I’ve put myself in a position to see my old acquaintences of the running path. Between having no time, no energy, competing priorities and a bum foot, I’d almost forgotten what I was missing - my vague sense of loss was getting vaguer week by week.  I knew that I wasn’t getting my aerobic quotient, but what that meant to me kept getting harder to pinpoint.  But the other aspect of my loss, the socio-emotional deficit, festered within me to the same extent that I was inattentive to it, a rate that increased geometrically till I was utterly unconscious of how badly I missed it.  But a few weeks ago I got a reminder from SDG, for which I am, I think, extremely grateful. 

I was heading up the big boulevard that runs through the park and presidio, and adjacent to which I keep my humble abode.  A busline plies this boulevard, furnished with spare wooden benches.  Upon one of these, one street north of the spring bloom of the rose garden, I re-encountered SDG - a living, stomping testament to the passage and constancy of time. 

He was looking a little worse for wear, it can’t be denied.  His hair was longer and greasier, his shoes and shorts shabbier, his body flabbier and his skin more leathery.  It looked to me as if the months since I’d last seen him hadn’t been easy ones for him.  It showed most of all in his dancing.  His rhythm was slower, his feet rose less high and fell less emphatically.  I couldn’t even see headphones - he might have been dancing without any accompaniment whatsoever. 

But dance he did, undeterred by the indignities and hardships he’d obviously endured.  He was up on his bench, stomping his stomps regardless.  To me, it was an act of defiance, a declaration of independence.  It made me want to go running again.  I’ll be slower and flatfooted, but obviously that shouldn’t be an impediment.  The important thing is to get back on my metaphorical bench and start stomping.  If SDG can do it, so can I.