Running in Toronto
I am running. Running an aimless path. Running into words that overcome me on my morning ritual. I am conscious of the scrutinizing gaze of Osho who tells me my head should be empty of words when I run, according to the Buddhist meditation book I’m currently a student of. Yes, empty of words when I run…on.
But I assure him (him? Her? My studies of meditation obviously incomplete at this point) that the words are heart words, not head. Would he believe me? Do I believe myself?
On Fulton, the city’s water pipes need repair, fixing, surgical attention. So temporary veins of the city’s lifeblood lie exposed on the sidewalk. At intersections of pipe, the water escapes, frantically spurting and coughing up blood that sprays my leg as my sneakers disturb its puddles.
What caused this fatal rupture in your heart, I ask the underground network of steel and rubber that winds beneath a thin skin of grass and pavement. (Not grass, I correct myself as I run. Lawn.) Lawn and pavement.
Perhaps the roots of one of these grand trees is trying to assert its territory. It could have just been trying to network with the veins, commune, meld, mold, love them without realizing its own brute strength. Haven’t we all heard that one before? And yet we remain confused on the boundaries between tenderness and violence.
Whatever it’s intentions, I honor the trees as I run, my steps beating out a prayer against the sidewalk as my path meanders to catch every bit of their sacred shade.
Give me oxygen, I pray, I pant, breathing heavily, rhythmically. Give me oxygen, and I’ll give you…
What? Everything I have to give seems so small in comparison.
“That’s your own issue,” says the tree. Give me a song.
But I assure him (him? Her? My studies of meditation obviously incomplete at this point) that the words are heart words, not head. Would he believe me? Do I believe myself?
On Fulton, the city’s water pipes need repair, fixing, surgical attention. So temporary veins of the city’s lifeblood lie exposed on the sidewalk. At intersections of pipe, the water escapes, frantically spurting and coughing up blood that sprays my leg as my sneakers disturb its puddles.
What caused this fatal rupture in your heart, I ask the underground network of steel and rubber that winds beneath a thin skin of grass and pavement. (Not grass, I correct myself as I run. Lawn.) Lawn and pavement.
Perhaps the roots of one of these grand trees is trying to assert its territory. It could have just been trying to network with the veins, commune, meld, mold, love them without realizing its own brute strength. Haven’t we all heard that one before? And yet we remain confused on the boundaries between tenderness and violence.
Whatever it’s intentions, I honor the trees as I run, my steps beating out a prayer against the sidewalk as my path meanders to catch every bit of their sacred shade.
Give me oxygen, I pray, I pant, breathing heavily, rhythmically. Give me oxygen, and I’ll give you…
What? Everything I have to give seems so small in comparison.
“That’s your own issue,” says the tree. Give me a song.
posted by Carrie Catherine at
9:53 AM
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