“I’m stronger now…faster now...stronger now…faster now.” Skirting twists an bends, the worn trail snakes Tallmadge Forest. Fire and needles invade, burst concussion point explosions in bone, muscle, joint. Somewhere along the way everything inside my mind unconsciously shuts down like dominoes one by one little by little came undone major portions of itself, unplugs some, bolsters others. Mental damage control. Moving I'm hyper aware of every dip, rock, root, crevice jutting out. Feet fall the exact spot every time. I move forward but hardly aware of it. Body and brain devolve an autopilot state, I observe movement and shifting peripherals a specters. Out of body and hovering above at once vacant and aware beyond understanding what’s going on, I'm collecting.
“I’m stronger now…faster now...stronger now…faster now,” echoes my head. It's a mental bandage and brace holding everything together and moving me forward. Pain and fatigue has wiped all other thoughts away, but somewhere back in the recesses of my mind another notion builds and bubbles up some darkness that pecks and whispers, “stop for just a second.”
Deep in the woods and still hours from the end exhaustion mounts while two opposing echoes push on one another for control of choice and action. For the moment the infinity loop reinforced, the firewall against cessation keeps every thing smooth and fluid a constant, even pace. I desperately want the pain to end, but equally refuse to give in to it, to pause, to stop.
I know this pain well. I've experienced it various forms my entire life. Still can’t read it. Can never recognize immediately where the pain is leading. Soon time a decision. Stop and let it all subside or push through till the body’s natural movement works everything out.
Been this here crossroads before. If you can't keep going cease. Forget about it, realize suddenly you've always known it’s gone. Break through moments where extraordinary healing occurs. Make big improvements come ultimately cure injuries and end aches.
Done savage damage to stop once pain made a proper introduction. Damage to extents immobile for weeks. Wipes away all the progress made and slings back past square one. Stagnation causing by self-induced injury particularly harmful as it typically travels with its friends in tow: pity, loathing, and despair. For me to not move is akin to slow death.
Is it fear of pain, fear of stopping, fear of never being able to start again? Yes, they are all there, but a part of me enjoys a healthy measure of these things. Or rather they have always been ever-present in my life so I have adapted in order to live with them. Yes, fear and pain exist, and they are not a bad thing. Neither is running, literally or metaphorically, a bad thing as long as you take away something from it. I run extreme distances for the intense pleasure despite what possible discomfort may ensue. I love it. Run in the morning and you will be high all day long. I run in the woods because I love the woods. It is an escape both from the world and from myself, from standard obvious everyday normal-type thinking. Go run ten miles and you turn on your reptile brain. Running in the woods is creative. It is a creative process. Running long distances in the woods becomes a lifestyle. Running in the woods is my childhood, my high school, my college, and my today. Pain be damn, I’ll never quit. And what ever the pain takes from me I take back from it. Pain and I have a symbiotic relationship of mutually assured reward and destruction. I take ideas from the pain and exhaustion and use them for stories even if I don’t know it at the time.
Stories and the woods have always been a part of me. I associate my childhood with a thick, evergreen riverside forest in full bloom with deep pungent clay, mud, trees, and adjoining cornfields. I had all the local trappings of nature in heat.
The trees had damp earthen brown roots, while I traded off between bright red Reebok Classics and the curved bottom of my bare feet. There is nothing like bare foot running. Both the trees and I soaked up what there was to be had from the local dirt.
Back then, looking forward I tried to play brother to the trees and tell people how slow everything went about its way and how nothing mattered because nothing was going anywhere anyways. I was wrong. I think that I was just scared of being at the center of a circle and not knowing which way to run.
I was right to aspire to my leafy friends, but in the pain, anger, and frustration of my extreme youth I confused their beauty and nobility with my contempt and frustration. The trees weren’t rigidly forced into permanent defeat. They had all the options of a young featherweight in the wind. The trees had traced, landed, and dug into a biologically perfect home. If I had the right eyes, ears, and mind back then I would have immediately recognized the beauty in a perfect fit, a forever evergreen.
When in trouble, and I was constantly in trouble, I got the boot, kicked out of the house. It's crazy to think about it now because I was so little. No more than the third or forth grade, a Saturday morning cartoons little kid, but out I went with no hesitation and lots of yelling. Kicked out of the house, rain or shine, the door slammed and locked behind me.
Living at the end of a cul-de-sac I had a gateway to a limitless wood, but I hardly had anyone to share it with. My younger brother, my partner in crime, and I were the only kids in the neighborhood. The total lack of peers mixed with an infinite forest playground made for a strong, active imagination and a love of exploring. Returning home all was forgiven or forgotten or ignored. We never had a lecture or discussion about it; the chalkboard was wiped clean.
Returning home, from out of the woods we immediately began drawing maps and writing very small stories about our local travels. Drawing out these post-adventure stories and maps was so much fun. They came naturally and with great ease. I don’t ever remember judging or scrutinizing one of my silly little stories. I never finished one and thought it was garbage. They were all great fun.
To this day in my writing, I am still trying to capture my experience of the everyday mysteries lurking in the ever-present forests of my life. I run through them and collect. What escapes me now is that pleasure and satisfaction that use to come with a completed story post-nature story. I know that this contentment is out there somewhere lost in the woods waiting to be found. I hope someday I will return home with it no matter the pain I have to go through.
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