Running for Your Life: March Mood

It is the spring of 1976, I am twenty years old, and from the start of the year have been in a hospital bed. For days and nights during that time I didn’t know if I would live or die.

My recovery started in March.

It’s why my mind will drift back to those days in 1976 as I lie awake in all seasons when I can’t sleep. I just let time tick by. Each moment being precious, you know …

.. that’s a little of what March brings, an elegiac mood, combined with the first of more varied birdsong. The promise of spring after a long winter. Time to consider new projects, plan travel, leg it out in long runs. Savor the sweet elixir of just being alive.

It is March 1985 when I have returned from a trip to Cuba. I was making plans to go back. The previous year I lived abroad, traveled to Tahiti, New Zealand, Australia, and Mexico, and then to Cuba. In July, to Nicaragua, about which I write for my hometown newspaper, the Owen Sound Sun Times.

What doesn’t take root in March? These past 34 years from March 1985 have been a whirlwind: love and marriage, a transcendent daughter, newspaper work, book-writing, many, many miles of travel, and many, many miles of running.

And last night (March 17) I couldn’t sleep – and took a little inventory. Felt the thrill of what is the incredible March of time.

Next: Running for Your Life: ‘Stone-d’