What are we but an aggregation of our habits? We have
destinies, sure. A son goes to war. A girl is born into poverty in Africa. A
child is born to two Democratic-voting lawyers in Park Slope.
Change doesn’t figure in the human story quite the way we’ve
been led to believe from our founding myths and fables. We mourn the warrior
dead, but yet that path honors sacrifice, often, sadly, at a far too early age.
In return there’s color guard burial, Arlington Cemetery in the center of our
nation’s capital, still the most powerful nexus of our known universe.
So if change is hard to come by, good habits, for those of
us with modest means, are not: eat well, sleep soundly, sing lullabies to
babies, drink responsibly, compete hard in a sport, run for your life.
Thankfully, that’s what I’ve been able to do. Run for my
life. In 2016, that will be the case for forty years, every other day, at the
least, or during marathon training, of course, much more than that. Today
(August 31) I ran hard, five miles in forty-five minutes, a pace I can manage
these days. It was hot and humid, but I did not stop except to drink a little
at a public fountain.
How do you keep at it? You don’t stop. Each day I run is
different. For some, I’m itching to go, others I can’t seem to drag myself up
and out of a chair. Habit, though, becomes ingrained: like eating well, doing
good deeds, as simple as collecting plastic bags that blow in great numbers on
the paths that I run; in five miles I’ll gather, two, three, four as they dance
on the ground in the wind, and bring them home to be used as pick-up bags for
Thurber, our redbone coonhound. You do what you do because you have to. Because
it is what you do.
What role does passion play? It’s different. It’s different
every day.
Next: Running for Your Life: Runners and Bikers: What’s to Be
Done?
