Solitude Running
This screen has been open for the whole work day. I guess I've been actually doing work.
I reconnected with an old route - the ten-mile Acme loop - this morning. I have run this with many people in the past, just about all of whom are either gone or not running right now. To make that even sadder I put on a Patti Griffin album I just downloaded, Impossible Dream, which is from 2004 but is new to me. Griffin's music is what I play when I feel in a solitary mood, and the music framed the run. Not only in terms of running through layers of past go-rounds of this loop with different people and connotations, but also in terms of people I saw on the way. People who appeared in monads and dyads - a man seeing that his young daughter get on the schoolbus; an older man throwing food crumbs on the sidewalk for pigeons, people walking along the side of the roads carrying bags, and others that seemed to fit with the music getting injected into my head. The run went strong, if not overly fast, and the music contributed to that.
I got three comments on yesterday's post. More than I usually get or expect, as I am not as good in interacting in the blogosphere as I should be. Which makes me all the more appreciative of them. While two were on my running, the one on my recent little trials into writing more "personal notes" stuck with me this morning. On one hand what I write here is personal, but it is mainly what is on my mind, and DelDean's comment got me thinking that I still keep many things at arm's length here. Not that its good or bad to do that, but just that I do that. Gets me seeing my writing here differently. I encourage folks in the classes I teach to look at the familiar - for example how doctors interact with patients - from different contexts and am appreciative when someone does that for me. I've written before how I just read What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Haruki Murakami's memoir, and though I had some problems with the book I have been thinking about what it would take to write more in a memoir style. A bit like inching up to the starting line, wondering if I want to run this race.
And in a non-running item, I lost a great aunt this afternoon. She passed in Switzerland, peacefully after a difficult couple of weeks, after a good, long life. I would see her often as a child when I spent summers in Europe, and occasionally as an adult when she'd come to the US. She impressed me with a wonderful, childlike take on life that I trust facilitated her transition to death. A joyful presence amidst a family who tended to take life way too seriously. When I was 14 and she was in her 60's she introduced me to Bob Marley's music. When Tony was four and she was in her 80's she'd do crazy jiglike dances with him. Good-bye, Vevette.
10 miles in 85:20.
I reconnected with an old route - the ten-mile Acme loop - this morning. I have run this with many people in the past, just about all of whom are either gone or not running right now. To make that even sadder I put on a Patti Griffin album I just downloaded, Impossible Dream, which is from 2004 but is new to me. Griffin's music is what I play when I feel in a solitary mood, and the music framed the run. Not only in terms of running through layers of past go-rounds of this loop with different people and connotations, but also in terms of people I saw on the way. People who appeared in monads and dyads - a man seeing that his young daughter get on the schoolbus; an older man throwing food crumbs on the sidewalk for pigeons, people walking along the side of the roads carrying bags, and others that seemed to fit with the music getting injected into my head. The run went strong, if not overly fast, and the music contributed to that.
I got three comments on yesterday's post. More than I usually get or expect, as I am not as good in interacting in the blogosphere as I should be. Which makes me all the more appreciative of them. While two were on my running, the one on my recent little trials into writing more "personal notes" stuck with me this morning. On one hand what I write here is personal, but it is mainly what is on my mind, and DelDean's comment got me thinking that I still keep many things at arm's length here. Not that its good or bad to do that, but just that I do that. Gets me seeing my writing here differently. I encourage folks in the classes I teach to look at the familiar - for example how doctors interact with patients - from different contexts and am appreciative when someone does that for me. I've written before how I just read What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, Haruki Murakami's memoir, and though I had some problems with the book I have been thinking about what it would take to write more in a memoir style. A bit like inching up to the starting line, wondering if I want to run this race.
And in a non-running item, I lost a great aunt this afternoon. She passed in Switzerland, peacefully after a difficult couple of weeks, after a good, long life. I would see her often as a child when I spent summers in Europe, and occasionally as an adult when she'd come to the US. She impressed me with a wonderful, childlike take on life that I trust facilitated her transition to death. A joyful presence amidst a family who tended to take life way too seriously. When I was 14 and she was in her 60's she introduced me to Bob Marley's music. When Tony was four and she was in her 80's she'd do crazy jiglike dances with him. Good-bye, Vevette.
10 miles in 85:20.
posted by seebo | 5:37 PM
1 Comments:
Here's to Vevette, what a beautiful name. I had no idea you spent summers in Europe. And Patty Griffin is one of my all time favorites, what a great album that is.
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