having it all

In the rain beside the tall yellow grasses, I could run forever.

I can feel the sweetness of a divine freedom; the strength to move so far under one’s own power. I pass the first homeless camp, then the second.  Cardboard Motels.  Cities of Sheets...  Population zero. I am alone.

The trail under my feet stretches as black as the storm I am running into, but that darkness is way over my head.

The path banks at the tracks, spills across the canal to the loop of the nature preserve.  At the first soft curve I can see the long straight away ahead.

Through falling rain I can see a man standing alone at the far end.  It is this moment in a thousand places and times that always make me hold my breath

I have a protocol when this happens: first slyly turn off my music and second no matter how tired or where I am in my run show no signs of weakness, run towards them with confidence, run past them with speed.

I pace myself.
Tug at my shorts soaked with rainwater, clinging too high on my thighs. Wiggle my toes now asleep in my shoes.  Shake my throbbing hand.  Prepare to look untouchable.

I watch him over my footfalls as I come nearer.  He stands on the gravel edge with his back to the trail as if looking out across the marsh but he is looking at me. He stares back over his shoulder.

It is in a single instant that I recognize him, it is slow, so slow I can’t pin point the difference between not seeing and seeing.  As he comes into focus I know him.  His stare is written on every fiber of who I am, every fiber of who I will ever be.

As I approach he smiles from under his hat, it takes ten years off his true age. “We have talked about this,” he says. “Where are your dogs?”

I hesitate to stop and run past him ending yards away, “One is too old the other doesn’t like rain.”

Neither of us budge to bridge the gap between us.  “Then get another dog.” he says.  His words drip threatening like the sky an angry growl above a flash of lightening.

“This is what finally gets you?! You are honestly mad at me for this?” I scoff and begin stretching to keep the cold out.

“I am sure I'm not the first man to stand here today waiting for you to happen by. And I’m not the first man to say you shouldn’t run this trail alone.”

“Maybe not but you dear are certainly the scariest.”
He laughs, it isn’t nice.

“Remember one thing Sweetness you can push yourself all you want but don’t be pushing me- I push back.”

“How did you know I would come this way?” I ask.  The doubt in my head asking an even dumber question: What makes you think he is standing here waiting for you?

His stare hardens as if he knows what doubt is thinking.

I squirm letting slip a true part of who I am out into the rain, “If you haven’t notice it is fucking dumping, who in their right mind would be out here?”

My language, my defiance, my self doubt, coupled with the absurdness of him of all people standing in the rain in the middle of nowhere just to catch me one last time before he has to hop back on a plane makes him laugh at us.

“What happened to your running partner, the big one?”
“He stopped showing up for me a long time ago.”
He begins to walk towards me covering huge amounts of ground with little effort.
“Find a new one.  I‘m sure there are plenty more where he came from.”

“No.” I answer, it stops him in his tracks.  He cocks his head to the side removes his hat holding it in his hands.  The rain falls.

“I am happier going at it alone because I’m tired of being let down.  I’m tired of always wondering if someone will or will not show up for me.  And when they don’t, blaming myself for it.  I like the sureness of knowing that every man standing on the sidelines is a man I am running away from not towards.”

“So you have gone and decided trust is beneath you, end of story. This all you ever want and you‘re not even going to try to get past it.”

“I have tried.  And you know what? I make bigger, better gains powered by fear than I have ever made through trust. Fear is constant and driving, trust feels a lot like standing out in the rain waiting for something that may or may not happen by."

“Then it begs the question, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, it begs your question- but not mine.” I say as I turn away.

In the rain, in shelter of the tall yellow grasses, under my own power I could run forever.

"If I had it all, you know

I'd fuck it up" If I had it All ~DMB