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

Running for Your Life: Eight-Year Fix

Come next week I’ll be at this running blog for eight years.

It began as an idea. That someone who started running every other day during the aftermath of a serious health ailment may just inspire a single person to do the same. What was it that former prime minister of Canada, Wilfrid Laurier, “tweeted” in an earlier blog post of mine:

“When the hour for final rest shall strike, and when my eyes shall close forever, I shall consider my life has not been wasted if I shall have contributed to heal one patriotic wound in the heart even of a single one of my fellow countrymen and to have thus promoted, even to the smallest extent, the cause of concord and harmony between the citizens of the Dominion.”

We Canadians can be like that. Stubborn when it comes to something we believe in. Look at Canadians at war, the vast number of Canadian women in real positions of political, social, judicial and religious authority.

If it’s birthright, so be it.

Meanwhile, here we go with an eight-year fix, and a pledge to keep this up for the next eight years. That would be 2026, for those counting, and damn, I’ll be seventy years old …         

A pledge is an honest statement of intention. S—t can happen, for sure. But when it comes to a certain kind of Canadian, you’d be wise to bet against what seems like more of a sure thing, like the current US president finding the courage to act in a moral, selfless and full of grace way.

Next: Running for Your Life: Never Find Yourself

Running for Your Life: Holiday Reading

It may not be for everybody, but here are some titles (old and new) that are rocking my world:

• “Brief History of Time” by Stephen Hawking is simply amazing. What strikes me is not the level of difficulty because frankly it’s not that dense (and this from a person whose brain-freeze can be ice cream-binge-y when it comes to reading about physics and mathematics) but the number of times a sentence will earn his exclamation mark!

• “Innumeracy” by John Allen Paulos. Okay, so now I’m obsessed with the fact that I’ve been on the Earth for only 22,722 days and that there is just so much more to do!

• And then there is the fella who is responsible for this spate of exciting science-based reading: “Realty Is Not What It Seems” by Carlo Rovelli. I may not be picking up everything Rovelli is putting down …. But this quantum gravity business?! I can see how it’s got minds old and young stirring bodies out of bed in the morning, chasing this holy grail of science.

Next: Running for Your Life: Eight-Year Fix

Running for Your Life: A Leader “Tweets”

 In the interest of restoring the notion of how national leaders should conduct themselves when addressing the public in a short message, I offer an example from Sir Wilfrid Laurier, (1896-1911), written nine years before he became Canada’s seventh prime minister:

“When the hour for final rest shall strike, and when my eyes shall close forever, I shall consider my life has not been wasted if I shall have contributed to heal one patriotic wound in the heart even of a single one of my fellow countrymen and to have thus promoted, even to the smallest extent, the cause of concord and harmony between the citizens of the Dominion.”

                                     

                                                  – 1887, Somerset, Quebec  

Next: Running for Your Life: Holiday Reading