Surprise! Running figures in my fiction and nonfiction. (And in a new photo, see below right Steamtown Marathon pic ... )
It’s fall, and in my neck of the woods, the leaves are still at it. Falling, that is. It may not motivate every runner, but it does one Ben Starwick, a character in a current novel, a work-in-progress, of mine. Here, he is in conversation with his friend, Luke DeSoto:
“Autumn in the park,” Ben says, “the leaves fall pretty much everywhere. On paths, the roadway, ponds,
simple streams. Me, I’m a creature of habit, whether it comes to running or writing. Discipline, bub. Remember when you told me that the one secret to being a writer was to “apply ass to chair?” Exactly right, boy-o. Well the same goes for my running. When the leaves fall I don’t vary my route, don’t steer myself under trees to increase my chances of catching leaves as they fall, instead, I just run as I always do, don’t press any harder or, God forbid, slow down or stop, and the leaves that come to me – not trap against my body or get caught up in my clothes but rather that I snatch from mid-air with my bare hand – are mine. The ones that I’ve put up on the wall-of-progress I’ve caught only in this way. And not just leaves, but maple keys and acorns, too. Those that I trap against my body I drop to the ground. The rule is it has to be a leaf or a seed that has come falling from a tree. I then hold the leaf only in the hand it was caught in, don’t let it touch any other part of my body, and continue on, completing my route before I return home. I only tack up those leaves that have not touched anything but my hand and the wall. That have only been in air and held in my open hand.”
“That’s quite beautiful.* How many leaves have you caught?”
“I couldn’t say. And I don’t care really. I only take those I catch inside the park, this hallowed ground. There are some years that I don’t catch any. Try it sometime. It’s not easy. More difficult than catching a firefly. But I’ve gotten better at it.”
* Loose Leafs
End over end they
fall; Chlorophiliac Ben
and his brittle husks.
Elsewhere, in a short burst about 9/11 and its immediate aftermath, Luke remembers:
“ Maybe it’s the marathon. The culture of it, thousands of runners, but even more New Yorkers lining the fall route. How else to explain it? Those young people, because they were mostly young, lining the railing in the black fog on the Hudson that day. But they were there, every fifty feet or so, our sentinels. My shirttail is covering my mouth, and I can see but a few feet in front of me, so it is mostly their voices I remember. “Slow down,” they say. “Stop running. Cover your mouth. It’s going to be okay. Just keep moving. That’s right, you’ll be home soon. Slowly. Go slow. Use your shirt-tail; the hem of your dress. That’s right. You’re looking good.”
*
And in “Tip of the Iceberg,” my memoir, running serves as a metaphor. Here’s a dash from an early draft:
“ I didn’t travel much but I liked to run. Once, I ran alone for miles in the bitter cold. Footfalls hit squarely on hard-packed snow, crunching; hips, as if on a tight hinge. Eyelashes moist with Vaseline; a toque to my brow. I recalled Father's story of the drive in the snowstorm, but instead of fear, I gave myself away to wonder. I scaled small hills of dazzling brilliance, what the Eskimos call quamaneq, the shaman light. Quamaneq is a fireball, a burning bush. In the darkest night, shamen see all: a single hair on a newborn’s head, an owl in a snowstorm. Dogs and wolves exchanged howls. My yellow scarf was tied tightly around my waist, my chest covered in nylon and wool, extended. For hours, I ran.
A German shepherd, at first I thought it was a wolf, its howl was so haunting, leapt into the road and made a bee line for me. I turned and the dog’s head filled my view, its nose clipping snow. It chose the best attack angle and came even faster. He was about to pounce when a shrill whistle split the air. And then he was gone.
Exhausted and thrilled, I paused at my door. Here in the blowing snow I imagined the red-faced warrior, Windigo, the Algonquin spirit of the wild. Hockey scores, much to my astonishment, were meaningless.”
*
All of which seems to be making the case that today consider my blog “Writing for Your Life.” Suits me. To close, a bit of new nonfiction writing:
“At the next crossroad, I take a fork that I’ve not been on before. The high desert road winds up and up and soon my left leg is protesting, swelling as it does when the climb gets difficult. Soon, I am beyond the dogs. Running hard now as my leg begins to return to a more normal size.
I stoop and grab another stone, triple-A skipping variety. But I’m a long way from a lake. Or the backyard pool of our vacation home, for that matter. I think of M waiting for me there. My father-in-law, Sol, on his eightieth birthday, once told M, in tears of sadness and joy, that his whole life was inside him. That is how I feel when I am on a run like this. That I’m not a fifty-five year-old man, but a twenty-five year-old, a teenager cruising Main Street in my father’s car, a toddler on a cold linoleum floor.
Finally, a high ridge, a lookout of sorts. I final-kick to the edge where I find four monolith-like slabs of rock. Near them are rough-hewn benches, with initials carved: LVS, GOG, FEZ. I sit in one and look between the monoliths toward what I think must be where I’ve come. But I’m totally wrong. Nothing of what I see looks familiar. I’m exhausted, drained, with no water, and no idea of how to get back home.”
For more writing samples, and to buy books, visit www.larryoconnor.net
Running for Your Life: Why in the Winter?
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