After a marathon, the pause. And in it, falls light.
Training, in its obsessive preoccupation, is akin to grief.
The person who deeply grieves goes away. She leaves the equivalent of the dishes from two meals in the sink, doesn’t dust her things or clear clutter from tabletops
and counters. You may even seem the same to others on the street who aren’t
privy to your personal life. But what’s around you, when you emerge from your “away”
state, has altered.
That’s how it feels now for me, after having completed the
100-day before-and-after training for the Nova Scotia Marathon. Like
waking from a 100-day sleep; in my case though, a slumber of my own making.
Crossing the finish line of a marathon, especially with a
loved one there to greet me, is an indescribable feeling. That’s why I suppose in
the past I have found myself back in a training head before too long. I’ve
found that that feeling is worth every minute of the training, and the “away”ness
that goes with it.
Because now it’s Light in August. Not just William Faulkner,
the author of that title, a favorite of mine, but my own writing and “My
Struggle” by Knausgaard, “Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki” by Murakami, “Subtle Bodies”
by Norman Rush, Anything by Anne Carson, “Ecstatic Cahoots” by Stuart Dybek, art
by Ai Weiwei and Sigmar Polke.
There has been a surfeit of running; now it’s a glorious time,
in the Light of August, to restore and revive in the “home” – to read and write and sometimes, run.
Next: Running for Your Life: Nova Scotia Mood
