I used to watch my mom spin her LPs and sway to the music during her afternoons when work was right around the corner. She seemed to float away although she never left the living room. She swayed like trees riding breezes and she let her eyes shift to that point where the far off distances were within arm’s reach. I often wondered what went on in her mind when she listened to her music. I wondered why she looked so calm and so rhythmic but so sad too. Where was she where I wasn’t? I don’t know how old I was when it hit me, probably in my 20’s and lying on my bed with the headphones cupping my ears and no doubt some melodrama spinning in my head when of the sudden I knew. I knew where mom went on those afternoons when work was right around the corner. She was off from the here and now and experiencing the life she dreamt of and paining through the loss of whatever love she thought she had and how the real world wasn’t found in the home economic texts from high school. No one told her that men leave and kids suck every ounce of peace and calm from you. No one was there during most days when she needed an ear and shoulder and maybe just someone to comfort her from even the most mundane of worries like spoiled milk or bad television reception. She was ultimately alone unlike anything her elders ever told her. Loneliness was never discussed. Quiet and severe were the ways to be. So she swayed and floated away and I sat and sometimes looked at her and wondered where she was during those afternoons when work was right around the corner.
Now I went running the other day. It was hot and humid. My shirt stuck to me like heavy skin. The sun made my eyes squint. We two, the sun and I, aren’t so different I thought. It shines like I breathe – both unconscious actions. It had a beginning as I, a smallish being in comparison but growing larger the closer I am to death. Just like the sun which will turn from yellow blaze to red giant to white dwarf to ultimately collapse into the blackest of holes sucking in everything around it and absorbing so much light. I too will end gathering as much light as possible along the way and although I don’t know the exact date of my farewell, I know the sun will end too even if it doesn’t know exactly when either. The sun and I depend on one another. The sun needs me to be aware of its existence, in a manner of perception, and I need the sun for my own existence. My run was ending but not as brilliantly as I had planned. I panted and stopped a few yards from the corner, the exact spot which would have been just far enough for a good run, but stopping short no matter what the distance is never a good thing. It’s necessary far too often, but leaves me feeling incomplete. But I lifted my arms anyway and praised Jesus and told myself that I was proud of my running and so on. It’s always like that, the daunting run, the dragon, the monster, the plague. I must endure the trek, the beast, and become victorious even though my embarkation is an exercise in reluctance. I die at some point during the run, am reborn when I realize I have to walk a ways before I can sit. It’s better to run a couple miles home than walk; it takes too long. It’s always like that, always an epic like the hero’s journey but not as magnificent. A friend of mine used to tell me, about his running, that he never let anything suck until it had to suck. Told me he didn’t think of the mile long hill he had to climb until he was halfway up it. Told me he didn’t make the road harder or the course any more interminable than it actually was. I guess that’s what mom was doing when she was swaying to the music.
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