So Small…
There are those moments in life when we are so intimidated.
I reflected on this, as we human beings have our plans as life hands us our
uncertainties. Actually, we are handed
uncertainties every day. We just don’t reckon with all of it. Some people see the train coming and others
don’t. My reaction is, I use math. Math
Statistics, I’m a numbers person. It’s partly how my brain operates, that along
with thinking of anatomy. It comforts me little and sometimes a little more
than little. There have been days I think I can’t run a step. What I do, is I
take my own advice and say, ‘Just get dressed. As if you were a runner. Walk outside. Smell the air. Be Grateful and move with no ideas. One step at a time. If you can run one
hundred meters, then try two hundred meters. Not fast, yet methodical. Feel the air, the rain, the snow on your
face, move your feet. Focus on each step, hear your breathing.’ Before you
know it, a half mile has passed. Time
has ebbed and flowed through all living souls at those very moments you’ve moved
your body.
Then there are those of us who are too embarrassed to go for
a walk, or a run. It’s all vanity. I make sure I’m poor-looking because I know
nothing matters without movement. I don’t
need new digs. I wear what I have left to my name, and what I can afford. And
if I look poor, I will attract no one. I’ll just be the person moving my body
out and about, for whatever time is chosen for me for that day.
The other day as I ran, finding a new route which was
stupendous in view. I admittedly didn’t want to run that day. Then when I began
to run, I said to myself, “I don’t know if I can run another uphill.” I thought
to myself, ‘Why?’ No real answer did I receive from within. My mind reflected
back to a handful of years ago, as I’d run the back roads from my home in Bergen
County, New Jersey up through Northern Passaic County, Sussex County, and other
areas up north. Such as turning off of Greenwood Lake Turnpike and onto
Sloatsburg Road; then to Sterling Mine Road into New York State taking Eagle
Valley Road after that; then onto Old 17/Orange Turnpike; then soon onto Seven
Lakes Drive and Johnsontown Road. Sometimes running up to as far as the Bear
Mountain Inn, or Perkins Point. Usually
though, my turn around was Tiorati Lake or Sebago. I’d call home and let my
husband know I was safe and on my way back home.
There were days I’d planned an eighty mile run, or as
adventurous as a hundred and forty mile run that would take me far into the
next day. Eighty milers were easier on the family. Yet, I knew if I ran sixty
miles or less, practically, no one would know that I’d even left the house late
on a Friday night. Only to arrive back home Saturday morning to take our
daughters to their respective ballet classes. As well, then make lunches for meeting
another mom in the park or zoo for a long weekend playdate, then taking our
sleeping daughters foodshopping. At times one sleeping strapped to the front of
me and the other in our double stroller I’d pack with food, as I shopped at a local
food store.
The days that I’d planned seventy, or eighty mile runs, I couldn’t
plan the weather. So, I prayed that I
was strong enough to weather any storms presiding. I remember this one
day. It was a clear blue sky. I wanted
eighty-two miles in the bank for that particular day. I’d left at around half past twelve in the
morning and hoped I’d be home by two or three in the afternoon. I knew the
weather would be conducive to a great running environment. It would be warm. I
might need gloves in the beginning, and a cap to wear to hold my LED headlamp
through the night and early morning hours of running. As well my ‘Las Vegas’
Large Men’s Blinking Reflective Vest. From afar, like three hundred meters
away, I would look like a tow truck.
This one day as I was on my way back, wearing my camelback, packed
with the taste of the water leaving much to be desired. So, at nearly the
bottom of Skyline Drive, I stopped at Goldberg Bagels. I paused my watch,
waddled in, and ordered a salt bagel or two and a black coffee, purchasing two
bottles of water as well. Then I attended
my bathroom duties. Clean bathrooms always make me happy. The little things we take for granted. Soap,
water, paper towels. Amazing things, I feel as my body aches. Yet my mind
buzzes on the fullness of colors streamed to me live on this particular day.
And yes doing this much exercise, you do get high.
After stuffing a salted bagel down my throat outside the
store. I sipped four ounces of my coffee and the rest I had to trash. I
refilled my fast-draw water bottle. So, I’d carry two full bottles of water,
one in each hand up the side of Skyline Drive. I was a bit beat up from not
just the run, yet from the sun as well.
I began my ascent up the long, Saturday trafficked busy
roadway of Skyline Drive in Ringwood, New Jersey. I ran with a paper bag holding
the other salted bagel in my left pinky and ring finger with my fast draw
bottle held with the other three fingers of that same hand. And my right hand holding one of the water bottles
I’d just purchased. On my back, was my now nearly twelve pound camelback,
stuffed with dried mashed potatoes, utensils, money, left over extra clothing, cell
phone, jelly beans, electrolyte capsules and powdered packages, maps, compass, pocket
knife, another knife, spray for the bad guys, and well forty ounces of
ilky-tasting water. I always know how much it weighs, per my old buddy Dr.
Manning and I had weighed this baby a few times before a some of my runs.
This one gorgeous late spring day, I began the trek up. I
felt so intimidated. My mind, never mind
my body was so worn. I ran up a good portion of Skyline Drive, then I realized
I needed shade. My eyes seemed to not be focused enough. I was indeed
stumbling, twisting my ankle as I did. I knew whether it was sprained or not, I
still had to make it up to the top of Skyline Drive or I would be mentally
crushed. Hey, I’ve got my standards to
chalk up something as a good run. As I was about ascend the final half mile or
so there was a shaded area, where I could safely sit on a metal guard rail,
hoping it wouldn’t burn my hamstrings. As I arrived at the guardrail. A client,
who was a nurse and a triathlete saw me.
She drove up to me in her little sports car and yelled, “Jody!” She
offered a ride. I refused, “I’m doing great. Thanks.” I replied as I had
already been to this point of no return and no more energy, feeling completely
broken on every level. We chatted for twenty seconds, waving to me as she drove
off in her little car with the convertible top down.
I called my husband, “Hey. Can you meet me at the top of Skyline
Drive with the girls? I’m about a mile away from the top.” He was cool with packing up our two daughters
for a little ride to see mommy and pick her up from the top of the ridge of
some mountainous terrain. As I got off the phone and reloaded my camelback,
bottles, and bagel bag, I looked up.
That’s all there was, was up. A blue sky and green leaves lining the path
to my side, now going back east homeward. All at once I felt so small. It’s not
that I hadn’t ever felt small. It was
this time as only a few, I was greatly intimidated. I remarked, “Oh God. What
the Hell is a matter with me?” I paused. I looked up again and began to ascend
the mountainous roadway. “Okay get me to the top, Buddy. You and me, we’re doing
it.” Off and up I ran. Making it to the top and finding a big rock in the hiking
parking lot which was nearly filled with cars that afternoon. I let my husband
know where I would be sitting, and where he could safely pull over to pick me
up.
To this day, I see
that ascension that I didn’t know if I could make it to the top. I’ve been
there many
times in life.
Sometimes in the desert looking at a never-ending mountainous climb,
much, much further. Ascending twelve to sixteen miles upward with no shade.
With temperatures well into the one hundred and twenties. This view of looking
up, feeling crushed by the enormity of the task at hand happens in life’s curve
ball throws. We think it is aimed at us.
Sometimes it is. Sometimes it is for the
guy behind us. Sometimes we are the witness to it. However, when it is aimed at
us, it is not that it is aimed at us.
Rather, it is what we do with the task of not knowing the unknown
result. Especially, if we can’t duck it. Because we are so small and in our
minds, the task appears as of a bewildering enormity. Yet, if we put on our
outside gear, taking the first step, the first breath, deep. Feel it all.
All the scariness which includes life’s uncertainties, we may not
survive exactly the way we want to. One thing I can assure us, is we will learn. What we do with that learning, many times is
up to us, individually.---Jody-Lynn Reicher
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