There are few things that bring me more peace than the sight of a deserted trail stretching in front of me. Every step I take out onto it becomes such an intimate thing--a soft, hushed application of my weight, muted to silence by the awe of sprawling life all around me. I cross the bridge, emerge from the first canopy and breathe in the vast, open expanse of field beyond, and suddenly it's as though the teeming acquirocracy I left only minutes before no longer exists, and never did.

Then there's thudding breath, a beat of footfalls, entwining muscles clenching and releasing, body chemicals coursing, rushing, stories and songs rolling through my head, struggle and freedom at the same time.

Occasionally I crouch and pluck a fat, squirming worm from its spot in the dusty, gravelly trail—the poor inchoate sensor having stranded itself in the powdery suffocation from which it wouldn't escape—and place it gently down on a nearby spot of bare, damp, cool ground. Then I straighten up and go back to the joyous struggle.

At the end, I almost don't but then do pick up some cast-off filth from near my car—the random debris that only careless humans can create, the kind that poisons while being made and poisons after being discarded. And only because of that extra few seconds' work am I still there when you arrive, and though I came for silent, solitary meditation, I am glad to see you and speaking with you makes me happy. And I leave thinking that somewhere in these few simple moments is most everything I need to know about life. I know I'll forget it soon. And remember it again sometime after that. And so it goes.

Labels: Ruminations, Running