Running for Your Life: Cozumel Captured

It’s called the Coz CafĂ©, Coz for Cozumel, and it’s expat central with espresso colonial.

Here is where I wrote my first poem in I don’t know how long (not shown here), in part as a reaction to the following framed message that appears on the wall that best conveys adventure in the meta-nuclear age of travel and leisure.:

“I have seen things. Awful things. Empty coffee cup things.”

Next: Running for Your Life: Resistance Obsession


Running for Your Life: Running Partner Surprise

Usually, well for about forty years, I run alone. Today (Jan. 15), though, there was an exception.

A man in the middle of Prospect Park flagged me down and I stopped to see what he wanted. He was holding a smartphone and he said two words in what I didn’t at first take as a question:

“Skating rink.”

After a pause, I said, “I can tell you where that is.”

Then I explained a pretty straightforward three-part route.

“Have you got that?”

The stranger feigned confidence and nodded his head, ever so slightly.

I resumed my run, but then after a few strides returned to him.

“I’m going that way. I can show you.”

He grinned, and in his civilian clothes of jeans, light winter coat and soft-soled shoes, started to run. I slowed a bit, but soon we were running side by side at my regular pace.

“You visiting?” I said.

He stared at me blankly.

“From China?”

“Yes,” he said, beaming. “Chinese.”

We ran in silence together for about five minutes until we were in earshot of the shrieks of children skating at the rink on this public  holiday in New York City.

“There you are,” I said, pointing in the direction of the outdoor rink.

“Thank you very much,” my running friend said.

I ran ahead, and when I double-backed on my road home I looked for him but couldn’t spot him, although the scene was very festive indeed.

Next: Running for Your Life: Resistance Obsession


Badass?

When did it happen that everyone of a certain age either was or felt it was in their best interest to be a badass?

Next: Running for Your Life: Running Partner Surprise

Running for Your Life: Cold as State of Mind

On my way aboard the D Train during the cyclone bomb winter storm in New York City (Jan. 4), an man gray at the temples is sitting forward in his seat, reading a hardback copy of the novel, MANHATTAN BEACH, by Jennifer Egan. The cynic in me says he must be family, or in publishing.

Still, it warms my cockles.

Watching him, I think cold can be a state of mind. Which doesn’t mean to say that one can put mind over matter. (Currently a top 5 T-shirt design:

MIND
--------
MATTER)

Rather that, even now, in my sixties, my blood thinned by age and in my case by a medical condition in which I must take pills to push that level even lower, wearing the right clothes and being smart about wind chill and, above all, staying dry, cold sparks the mind. To insights, long-lost memories, stirs a sense community where before was selfishness, hard-headedness.
Forgive me this as a Canadian many years out of the cold. But cold can be something to miss, when it arrives, even now, I treat it like the surprise visit of an old friend.
*
While cross-country skiing in Prospect Park (Jan. 5), gliding in under a thirty-foot tree, where up two-thirds to the top, perches a redtail hawk; I’ve pushed the ski, out to the near-sunset harsh glow of park south, when the sun goes the killer cold icy fingers on beardless skin, face, what no Vaseline?Get my ass home but before I do one last run until the thirty footer and it’s here I see the bird, glide closer, as silent as I can, two hours of practice helps the stealth and there I am, more dark than light, the bird stirs her feathers, puffing out, thick at her breast, turns to look at me, hooked beak and piercing gaze, cross eyes the feel, and I stare back but only for a beat because shes hungry for fight, wild meets nuance, one short time in her woods and I’ve the temerity to stare back at her.

Next: Running for Your Life: Badass?     




Running for Your Life: Never Find Yourself

Winning, inspirational artist quotes can be found in the strangest places.

As in on the wall at the Museum of Modern Art show featuring the work of Max Ernst (1891-1976), a show that is now closed that M and I stumbled on during a visit Dec. 20. (It closed on Jan. 1).

“When the artist finds himself he is lost. The fact that he has succeeded in never finding himself is regarded by Max Ernst as his only lasting achievement.”

Keep searching, baby ...

Next: Running for Your Life: Cold as State of Mind