You never know what will grow into something bigger.
For example: Overheard while . . .
Taking a break, sitting on the front stoop at home
“Let me call you back after I look at my phone.”
Running in the park, a makeup person in an open-air photo
shoot
“My background is in pageants and porn.”
So many ideas, observations go fleeting by. Our brain is a
marvelous treat of a thing, but we can ask too much of it. By keeping a record –
by that I mean some kind of bound book with pages that you fill unmediated by
phones or digital playthings (don’t tell me you can do anything more than tap
rather than really write on any of these tablet thingees) – you will manage to
hold on to ideas and observations that otherwise will be forgotten.
Besides there is truly something glorious about the feel of
an ink pen, cursive writing-printing across an unlined page that is so calming,
especially after a hard run as I’ve had today (Dec. 15), 35 minutes, just over
4 miles. Whatever cares I had before the run-write swept away by the
neurochemicals that release, yes, in that aforementioned marvelous brain, now
shooting waves of quiet pleasure to every pore, from toes to fingertips, and,
yes, I still feel the swollen calf and stiff leg of my DVT (see previous post,
Running for Your Life: Pascal Dupuis). But that is only as a footnote in a
novel, the footnote that is part of the narrative but not the deepest part. Not
even close.
Next: Running for Your Life: “My Stuggle” by Karl Ove
Knausgaard
