THE MILES
By Sarah S. Derer
I love to run. I am compelled to now, more than ever before.
Why?
I am a young woman, but my body is aging. My knees hurt
sometimes. Occasionally, my lower back does too. My dark brown mane is becoming
populated with shining silver strands.
I can do nothing to erase these new faults, the creeping
fine lines on my face and sagging flesh between my upper thighs. I can’t pull
up my skin like a pair of stubbornly earthbound pantyhose. I can for a moment. I can wrap my two hands around the meatiest part of
my leg, just before my butt, grasp the skin, and drag it higher, but this is
only a brief diversion, a slightly sad game of remember when. I let go and the
flesh of my upper leg (because I can only do this with one leg at a time)
retreats to its new home that much closer to my knee. This will go on for the
rest of my life until all of my flesh reaches its destination, its home in the
ground.
Something dawned on me recently, during a particularly long
run. Through age, my body has become a better machine than it has ever been. It
owes this improvement to my maturing brain.
I have never before been capable of the patience required to
run a long distance. Of course, when I was seventeen years old I had the
mechanics to do it, but I was not yet possessed of the wiring to commit the
time and energy required to achieve any great (to me) physical feat. Ten years
ago I was not capable of emptying my mind enough to simply and peacefully allow
my body to do what it could have done, what it wanted to and was surely able to
do.
I still lack patience, but I’m learning to operate on a
level where it plays less of a role in how I operate my arms, torso, legs and
feet. I’m learning to separate my physical act of running from any mental state
of eagerness or hurriedness. I submit myself to my body’s desire to move from
one point to another by foot. As it turns out, it can do this for quite a long
time. It enjoys it, revels in it even, and I go along for the ride as a
passenger would.
Ten years ago I was not propelled forward on my feet by the
anxiety of what can sometimes feel like a directionless life. I have studied
art, taken pictures, swelled bank accounts, diminished bank accounts, sold
possessions, kissed boys, lied to myself, honored commitments, been laid off,
gotten jobs, picked up and dropped myriad ideas and pursuits, picked them back
up and dropped them again, all to discover that I have a strong tendency to
start things but not finish them. Very little sticks. In this I am consistent.
I am untethered and unmoored. This puts fear into me, and fear makes me run.
Today I feel guilt. I feel guilt over the ways in which I
have abused my body since adolescence. It’s a feeling that is ever present, not
often in the fore ground, but always there, just out of the image, but making
its bitter presence felt, just the same. Generally speaking, I have been a good
steward, but I have been far from perfect. I think of all the late nights in my
early 20s spent smoking cigarettes and drinking into the darkest part of the
morning. I think of having sex with someone who I didn’t know after a party in
a neighborhood where I didn’t live. I think about how well I’ve known anyone
I’ve had sex with. I run to absolve myself of all the sins I’ve committed against
my body at one time or another. I don’t know if it will work, but I do it.
I seem to have the idea that if I hurt myself enough through
the physical strain of running a great deal, something will remain with me when
I’ve ditched weight by tossing all the unnecessary things over the side. I hope
that my body—this efficient, patient machine—will prioritize for me, will hang
on to whatever it is that my brain doesn’t know it should be keeping and shed
everything else.
When I was a teenager, my body seemed to be for very little
beyond appearing youthful but causing near-constant consternation at its
forgivable imperfections. I now see that I was skulking around in an impressive
vehicle with a powerful engine, with no knowledge of the fact or skills to use it.
As I age, I realize that my body must serve a different
purpose from the shallow one that it once did. It must do more than merely
appear. I am beginning to grasp the fact that it is for doing things, for
moving, and for protecting others and myself. It is the house I will always
live in and the car I will always drive. As I age I change from something soft
and even to something with more nuance, something with more contrast between
muscle hardened by the years and skin damaged by the experiences. I run to give
meaning to this change that is happening, this gradual decrepitude.
I will not stave off age, or the effects of time by running,
but I do think I can make the time more valuable. As someone very wise said,
it’s not the minutes—it’s the miles.
February 20, 2013
