Thursday, January 30, 2003
The Chucklehut is a place
The Chucklehut is a place of convivial carousing, so I’m not going to get into a bunch of humid details about what I flatter myself to call my renewed interest in fitness. But last night I strapped on my Avias, put the Thanksgiving 02 mix into the walkman, and ventured out into the night. The west horizon was crimson, fading fast to sepia; the air was cool but not cold, clear, welcoming. I got to the park three blocks away propelled by a grinding groove, heedless of my pace, my stride, my surroundings, letting the music dictate my thoughts and action. But when I got to the park everything changed. There, the air was darker, wetter, more of a presence as I cut through it, felt it against my legs and in my lungs; the song changed to one which always lifts my spirits. I hadn’t run outside for months, not since the late blooms and dry grasses of September. Now it’s the very leading edge of Spring and the plants are just starting to rouse themselves. New grass carpeted the ground beside me as I entered the Rose Garden from the busy snarling boulevard. My pace relaxed, yet quickened. I was running past bare rosebeds, each one crowned with several sere stems, the twigs pruned back till the bushes that would soon be verdant with leaves and buds looked more like skeletal hands reaching out from the ranks of regular rectangular plots, black earth against the green lawns, bed after bed, each gnarled bush gesturing poetically to the night sky. On my left a few impertinent old leaves still clung to the tall tumbling bushes, and behind them, the dropoff, steep and deep, into the ravine and the redwood grove, the regal trees towering over me, cool air sweeping up from the dark forest floor below.... I could taste the potential in the air as I ran, taste the world’s readiness to turn and blossom with the season, shaking off the torpor of winter as I shook off my own. There was a correspondence in my internal and external environments. It really felt right.
Today I feel the familiar soreness under my kneecap and wonder whether I’ll have to leave the running to the professionals. Regardless, I know for sure that my world and I are on the verge of a significant renewal. Flowers sometimes lie, but bare thorny stems know no prevarication.