Why I Run, Day Four: TO THINK

Running helps me think. I will not be citing any white papers on the correlation between exercise and cerebral function. Have you ever met an obese or lazy genius? Neither have I. They are usually too wiry and their thoughts are all convoluted and interwoven to the point they are forgetful, even to sit or eat or sleep.

There was a time in my life where I was sluggish and unmotivated and my dad told me, "you'll never amount to a hill of beans." So I kind of kicked in and did work, in so far as having a small lawn care business in high school and cleaning houses. As a kid, even a teen, I valued books and learning more than fitness, though.

Sparing you a bunch of anecdotes and memories for now. Suffice it to say, when I finally took up running competitively, the old joints were in remarkable shape...my mind not yet weary from physical exertion. It has been going on seventeen years and tens of thousands of miles. Not regretting one single step.

As I ran long and slow this morning, the night was seeping into its hole for later, waiting to welcome stars. My mind drifted deep into what I was listening to - the entanglement, symbiosis and synchronicity if he heart and mind, between the mother and her nursing infant. How (not so much new-agey) we are all synergistically energized by one miracle called life and our fleshly selves sync with everything in the world around us. Which explains well the coincidence of energy transmission between two persons at a distance or even love at first sight. That is the basic application of this thing, the quantum entanglement. I don't believe in coincidence, and only a tad in predestiny, since I am more of a free will heart thinking dreamer, drifter, tied-down gypsy.

Just thinking. I often think about my dad. It was just a little over two years ago that he committed suicide. I will save those many many thoughts for an entirely different set of thirty-day writings. I knew my dad well and knew something was off, but as a busy mom then, sadly ignored he impulse to fly out and peel him off the back of the sorrowful wall he had gotten himself glued to. I have had to think a LOT through the stages of grief, anger, guilt. For two years there have been mornings I stop mid-run because I have an energy connection with him still in spirit that knocks me to my knees and takes the breath out of my lungs. I replay the day I knew he would do it over and over so many mornings. Which is usually what segways me into talking to God. It is too much to handle.

Run on I must. It is very good therapy. Free, on-demand, always ready and harkening the waste of another pair of shoes. I'm hard on shoes. My soul really crushes all those soles.

I think about raising children and the conscious shortcomings that need improvement. Then I think to the future, only far enough to get excited because I have wasted so many years thinking and planning and all for naught. I need to think more about Heaven and more about the good things in life. Sometimes, surprisingly as a woman, there are just no thoughts at all.

I think I relish those thoughtless moments most. Because they hit and make a person pause, to really just stare and take stock of the world. How big it feels and how small it actually is. I think there are tens of thousands of miles yet to run, to perhaps get to the point where the words I speak (though few) are a fraction as articulate as those I think inside and sometimes as rich as written word. I think if you have not found a hobby you enjoy, you should try running if you are able.

Let it inspire you to dream, to exist, to think. You won't, I promise, regret one single step.