L. Robert Veeder
It’s dark out. It’s dark and it’s cold. It’s dark and it is cold and I do NOT want to get out of this car! But I have to. It took me nearly forty minutes to drive here. I woke up at five-thirty this morning JUST so I could get here in time, not for the actual sunrise; that won’t be for another half-hour or so, but that dim morning twilight when the sun hasn’t yet crested the horizon; That’s when I can actually start to see and keep from killing myself by some unexpected root, or a rebel rock in the middle of the trail.
It’s worse than that even. I started planning this particular run at about 6:00 p.m. yesterday. That’s when I started thinking that I needed to get my mileage back up so that I can really live this spring. I can of course do that on a treadmill, but it lacks the adventure. And adventure is at least PART of the reason I do this.
Finally, begrudgingly, I step out of the warm car, tap my watch a few times, crank up my music a bit and start slogging up the long hill of the parking lot, across the road and into the woods. From there I make a hard right onto the trail path, but even that is pretty straight up hill and for about the first four minutes of my run my prevailing thought is, “I don’t feel up to it this morning…I’m tired…maybe I’m coming down with something…I should turn around and head back to the car.” But for some reason I don’t. I’m not even sure why. My body feels heavy from Christmas cookies, winter pies, manicotti and of course football Sundays. I feel clumsy on the trails. I have these specialized trail running shoes, I only wear them in winter. They’re heavy, but they’ve got great grip and feel really solid when I’m tip toeing over a scribbling of maple tree roots. I’m grateful for them. I actually love all of the running shoes I have worn over the years. I have a tough time letting go of them, and these days when I retire my shoes I tend to screw them to a tree in our back field, always hoping someday birds or some other critter will somehow take up residence in them. The woods are quiet this morning. Even a couple of miles in I haven’t seen anyone. Even the birds are mostly silent. It takes a while but I start to sink into a rhythm. Things start getting easier. My heart rate is up, my breathing relaxed.
My breathing.
I went in for my annual physical recently and the doctor asked me if I’d ever been a smoker. I explained that I had and at the end of my smoking I was smoking filterless cigarettes “roll-ups” exclusively. She told me that she’d like to submit for a lung cancer test, which she later had done. I got a surprise notification the other day telling me that they had denied my test because I had been a non-smoker for too long. Fifteen years. The doctor had told me we’d just continue to keep an eye on things as much as possible.
It occurs to me while running that that means I’ve been running now for fifteen years. Tobacco was the last drug I had given up. It had also been the first one I’d started. Initially with Levi Garret chewing tobacco out behind the shed. Later I’d switched to Copenhagen snuff, along with the habit, which had been common among my friends in those days of mixing in a touch of vodka or Jack Daniel’s “to keep it moist, plus it gives ya a little buzz.” (Though it never did give me a buzz.) And then later almost exclusively to cigarettes. Marlboro reds at first. We called them “Cowboy Killers!” And then later to camels, but if you were a “real man” like I wanted to be, you’d smoke them filterless.
At this point in my run I’m hiking up a hill they call “Kitty Litter” because that’s what the gravel feels like under your feet. I’m trying to guess the grade, but it occurs to me that I actually have NO IDEA how to do that. It’s steep. I can’t run it. All I can do is hike up it. And for some reasons that maybe only the good lord knows, whenever I run a race in this particular park some photographer always thinks it’s a good idea to set up station at the top of this stupid hill. I promise you that is a picture I am NEVER EVER going to buy. You wanna sell me a picture, shoot one of me flying DOWN a tremendous hill. I am BEAUTIFUL then!
I’m thinking now about tobacco and how I started and that makes me think of high school. I have this thought. “I bet we spend about the first 25 years of our lives making the decisions that will determine the course of our lives, and about the next 75 (if you’re lucky) examining the causes and conditions that led to those decisions in the first place.”
I was on the track team in high school. But I didn’t run. I was in a residential military academy, Riverside Military Academy in Gainesville, Georgia, and we were required to take a sport. Most of the year I took fencing. I was honestly pretty good at it, and really loved it. But in the off season, when there was no fencing, I still had to be in a sport, so I joined the track team, as the track manager. I thought I had beat the system. The track manager didn’t have to run. The track manager didn’t have to do ANYTHING. I’d just set up the high jump, and the hurdles, and anything else anyone needed, and after that I’d go sit in the bleachers.
Well, one day I was out there and had just finished setting up the hurdles. I got curious. They looked easy enough. Nobody was looking. That was VERY important to me. They were all busy warming up for the track meet. So I ran them. Clearing them one after the other with ease. Didn’t think much about it honestly.
Later that afternoon there was a knock on my door. Coach Bennet, the track coach and also biology teacher was there looking at me.
“I saw what you did out there,” he accused.
“Huh?” (I wasn’t giving up anything.)
“I saw you run those hurdles. What the hell are you doing? Why aren’t you on my track team?”
I’ve re-lived that conversation a lot in my life. A whole lot.
In a perfect world I would have just been grateful that someone finally SAW me. I would have been interested. Told him I’d give it a shot, maybe even quit smoking and gone on to do something that I had truly loved.
But of course, this is not a perfect world.
Instead, my know-it-all mouth lit into some stupid rant about how running was stupid and not only should I NOT do it, nobody else should want to either. Whatever.
At the top of the hill I start running again, but this time I’m thinking about sobriety. Not exactly sobriety. I went to a running store with someone who is newly sober yesterday. I was sharing information about what I’ve learned about how a really good pair of running socks that’ll cost anywhere between fifteen and twenty dollars can really change your whole run.
“See that,” I said, “There aren’t any seams at the toes so you won’t blister there, and because they’re wool, when you run through puddles your feel will dry out quickly.” I was excited to talk about gloves. “Expect to spend fifty or sixty bucks on a good pair of gloves. They’re totally worth it. If I have warm hands, ears, and feet, I can go all day.” And I explain that it’s good to get your stuff out and ready, “because if you have to dig through and find everything, you’ll never leave the house, I promise you!”
My god, I’ve spent a lot of money on running gear. And while I’m running I’m thinking about the cost. Sometimes I’ll buy new gear just because I know it’ll get me back out the door and into the woods. But it hurts. In MY mind running is supposed to be free. I mean, I ran entire marathons in prison with nothing but cross trainers and rolled up pants and a t-shirt. How did I become so spoiled? When did I start needing all of this shit?!?
I’m squishing my way down a swamp trail now at a decent enough clip.
And it hits me. It hurts my feelings AND I feel guilty every single time I buy ANOTHER pair of socks, another new pair of gloves, a new shirt…or sign up for yet another race. But then I start thinking about comparative pricing.
“Wonder what a bottle of Makers Mark or Jack Daniel’s is costing these days? I bet I’m wearing a good half ounce of weed on my feet right now? How many nights at the bar did these gloves cost?”
But that thought is completely interrupted by this beautiful stillness.
This quiet, young, adolescent deer, who is completely bushed out for the winter is standing directly next to me. So close, with this deeply inquisitive look, like he doesn’t even see me for the predator that I am. He somehow seems to know that I am harmless now. And he’s just so close. I could reach out and soft pet his nose. I tell him calmly that I’m not here to hurt him, that I just want to look at him; and together we share this moment.
And I know that somehow I have come all of this way- for this. I give him the slightest of bows, thank him, and continue onward. The sky is grey, but it is light out now, the coldness has left my body, and once again, it has all been worth it.
The Prison Sketches 