I take my usual
route to jog today. No headphones, no cell phone, just the view of the trail
running through the colours of summer, green, blue, white, lilac. I love this
morning hour. It makes me feel connected with every moving muscle in my body. I
can hear the irregular gasping for breath and the rhythmic creaking of the
right knee. The first mile is the shortest, easiest. I have happy thoughts
during this. My lungs have no difficulty filling up with air, and my calves work
effortlessly to look good – I feel great. I know there will come a point shortly after
my second mile, where I have to turn right to get back to my parked car. I anticipate
from a distance. I look ahead and see no sign of that turn. Good. I have some
more time to let my mind wander. I am thinking of an unrelated melange of
things – I am thinking of dancing, of writing, of reading, of kissing, of
walking, of talking, of texting, of calling. I am enveloped by too many
thoughts and suddenly I am aware that I am running too fast. I feel like a female
lead in a TV show – theme music and all. Hair tied in a high ponytail, wearing
a sweater despite the heat, and multiple thoughts with an ominous intensity
that only she and her viewers can hear. I am looking ahead and I see no sign of
this trail turning right. I panic. Did I miss the turn? Surely it isn’t farther
down? I sense company. I see a young girl with a dog coming towards me from
yonder. What a strange dog – I don’t want to lock eye contact for too long as I
recall my old fear of dogs, in some sunken place in my mind. But the dog stops,
looks at me and sits down low, as if he is prostrating himself, as if I was his
master in some past life. I keep running, my pace is getting faster but the
constant cramping on the right side of my abdomen is begging me to slow down. I
ignore the begging for a while, until I can’t anymore. So I slow down and
wonder what time it is. I don’t want to be a slave to my Apple watch, but I
check it anyway. I have been running for 25 minutes. I was too caught up in my
thoughts, I missed my turn for sure. I am in the half-second of uncertainty –
the half-second where I am not sure if I should keep running straight or turn
around. That is when I see her. My friend – I call her Beth - walks on the same
route as me but in the counter direction. We cross paths twice, every morning. Beth
doesn’t always say hi, though. She is mostly engrossed in her own thoughts. But
today I wave at her, literally flailing my arms, short of breath from all the
nervous running. She is taken aback and shaken. I let out a desperate, expressive
interjection and a whole lot of panting. She stands frozen, staring at me,
bewildered yet unamused. I run wildly into her, sweat drops splashing off the
trickle down my forehead, and by now I am laughing. I bend over palming my
knees, panting, happy. I say, “What a wonderful morning, Beth”. She replies, “It’s
Trisha. It is a fine morning now, isn’t it?”
She makes two swift hand movements to brush off
my invisible sweat drops from her left shoulder and walks away without looking
back. My illusion of a friend called Beth dissolved as I watched her walking down
that summer trail.
