Happy Birthday, Dear Toes

Spring, at last, after the long winter / monsoon – wild flowers emerge, and the campus abounds with youthful leg – and I am light as an elf in my newfound ‘barefoot’ shoes, minimal clothing liberating me from winter wrappings. I skim the surface of the pavement, a light breeze carries me on, I am unencumbered, freed from ‘elevator sneakers’, floating.

The grass by the clock tower is damp, and feels soft beneath the thin soles of my Vibram Five Fingers, and I sense the long green blades curling over my feet, their soft touch holding, then letting go. I deliberately plant my feet on a twig, and it’s rough hew is warm to my touch as I push off, leaving it unbroken.

Three miles into the run, my calves – left leg, only, actually – come alive. Aha! A complaint from long unused muscles! There has been only the slightest jarring as I pound the pavement on virtually bare feet. The feel of every crack, the edge of the sidewalk, tar, cement and stone. These sensations are so new, pleasant, so real beneath my liberated soles.

There is not only the joy of discovery – but of pleasant release from Reebok’s overbearing presence, too!!!!

Blonde blossom

Weary of snow and rain, I revel in the crisp air as sunlight burns off the last of the morning mist. The moist trail is yielding, elastic under my feet, making the rise from Wild Horse Valley feel easy. I am soon up in the hills, high above civilization sprawled below me: busy, creative – vital – but distant, today.

Old age, disease and death. I am no Sidhartha, but they dog my thoughts, all the same – morbidly, perhaps – haunting me, not so much challenging my mind to seek a solution as mocking me with inevitable surrender.

Sure – you’ll win. But not today, not now. And not tomorrow. This run, this pounding pulse as I crest the hill, this pause to savor the air I gulp, this snapshot of the breathtaking view …… it is here, now, and confounds you. You attack, a vile underhand attack, you infest my friend with a pestilence, an evil plague. You thrust.

But we’ll parry. Your attack will be countered. We will meet you at the bluff. And thwart your evil plan.

But that’s not the issue. It is not victory I worry about as I run down the quiet trail on the far side of the hill. The rains have been plentiful, and the creeks are full, rushing. Pulsing with life. No! Victory is assured. But there is a cost. Pain is the price, and it is not I who must pay that heavy penalty.

This run is for strength, sustenance sucked from these hills, drawn from that rushing waterfall, bundled, delivered to she who will need it so. Abundant energy to nourish her core and give her the power to win – not just win, but to smile – laugh – every step of the torturous way.

I am stopped by a beautiful flower, standing alone: it is for you, my friend, with all my love and goodwill. As you battle this diabolical fiend may this blonde blossom be by your side. I know you’ll win - it is the smile on your face we fight for. As you do grim battle, your friends are here to fuel that smile - and bask in its warm glow.