These callouses
on my palms, dirt still jammed under my fingernails and bruise on the inside of
my foot do not match up to where I am sitting.
It’s Monday morning and as my co-workers pound out emails and talk TV
shows, I am out of the loop, thinking about scenes from the Fight Club where Ed
Norton’s unnamed ‘everyman’ comes to work battered and without
explanation. I am, ironically enough,
also utterly unaware of what they do with their weekends, though I have my suspicions
that it’s fairly pedestrian based on the looks they give me as I tell them, in
a cursory manner, where I’ve been. “I
cleaned trail all weekend”, I say, “down on the coast.” “In the rain?” they ask, “why?” To run it, of course; but they are just
bewildered and I’ve lost them already.
Already, before I can tell them it’s to feel the power that comes from
surging up and over moss covered rocky cliffs and hurl down long, narrow
tunnels of birch and spruce trees canopying knee deep mud puddles; to be with
the rugged, kind people who relish this time of endurance and exertion; to hold
court with those of like mind and break bread.
And maybe get a few scratches and blisters along the way. What the hell – it’s summer, you gotta cram
in all the adventure you can.
And there’s
something to be said, some noble thing to be said when you can drive for a
couple of hours to a house you’ve never been to that is home to folks you’ve
never met and not once think that there is anything wrong with it. And there is equally something amazing to get
there, to walk through the front doors of a 140 year old homestead to kids who
have just met and are already playing on the floor together, and to see
straight away that these strangers who have opened their doors and kitchen,
guest house and lives to you are going to be your fast friends before even the
first pair of sneakers are soaked. There
is something to be said for the hope it renews, the civility it nurtures, the
excitement it breeds. Something good,
something we all need but does seem hard to find.
The trail in
question -- a combination of grown over horse-logging roads, immaculate &
sinewy single track, & freshly rehabilitated ATV double track – had all of
the signature marks of being well loved and run almost daily. The moss on all sides was thick and fragrant
with a four inch swath cutting straight to the soft undergrowth down the middle,
cut branches collected to the sides in various states of decay, and brooks were
bridged with fresh hewn short logs strapped together as only a seasoned MTBiker
knows how to do. Every corner revealed a
new series of fast challenges over roots and rocks, down steep embankments, up
and over large downed trees. Our host
had us out there to spit and polish it up for the first Annual Herring Cove 11
& 22k Race. Our reward, he had said,
after the raking and trimming, talk and removal of loose stones, would be to
run it together. Sounded good.
The evening
before we had all met and gathered around a table that filled, emptied and
refilled with food and woven conversations over and over again as the kids
played together and dogs chased each other through the woods and fields. We had been given a strip of a local
hurricane that morning so as the sun went down the light turned orange and
yellow against low hanging clouds. Talk
was studded with dreams for a clear and wicked summer of racing as we tried, in
our Maritime way, to connect families and friends into an ever-narrowing world
of four, three, two degrees of separation.
Kids tired and food dwindled, once the fire in the stove started to cool
and thoughts of an early morning start crept in, we went to bed, strangely
confident that all would be well, that no doors needed to be locked, that having
your kids close and your sneakers and kit packed and ready was more than enough
to create safety.
Clouds gone and
heavy dew on the grass, 5:45am coffee with the host settled into slow talk of
the day’s work. Maps from the night
before were rehashed and flattened out.
We collected rakes and saws, loppers and gloves and threw them together
with our hydration packs and runners, gels and compression socks -- weird and
fitting warriors and their armour and tools.
A couple of local sailors had been recruited to come out with us –
neighbours whose land the trail cut across and good old boys who had more than
enough gumption to help us out for a bit – even if they did openly express
their head-shaking disbelief at why any of us would think that running through
the woods was any fun at all.
The trail was
heavy in parts with wet leaves and mud pooling up in the low sections, but the
raking was easy – a light breeze and the freshest of air. As we wound and leap-frogged our way over the
moss and solid bedrock it started to dawn on me how important and nurturing it
was to live like this, how not so long ago this was nothing more than a dream,
how hard I had worked to get here, with these people, doing this. At 43 and my kids 8 and 10, I see that these
years are all about being the man that my life has lead me to be, that their
memories are as dependent on my initiative as their physical health is tied to
my knowledge of what is best for them. I
see that the world I bring to them, the world that I cultivate around me, needs
to not just be satisfying to me, but safe and important and interesting and fun
for them, filled with cool people who in turn do important and interesting
things. That we are those people.
We get back to
the house mid-afternoon, quickly kick
off wet shoes and swap them for dry ones, stuff a couple of gels into us, throw
down the tools and before most of the folks who stayed behind have even
realized we are back, we are ready for the ‘reward run’. The kids, seven of them in all, ranging from 1
– 10 years old, are playing some crazy game with the hammock. My two catch a glimpse of me and come over. “Are you going running AGAIN?” my daughter
asks, smiling and planting one fist firmly on her hip. She’s just so little, but has the mannerisms
of her mother. It’s utterly
adorable. “Uh, yeah, I am.” She nods.
“Cool”. I’m off the hook and off
running.
The pace is
fast: we are moving hard and quick and
letting warm muscle carry the day. Over
our freshly cleared and narrow trail we accelerate into corners we hardly know
at all, grabbing trees to slingshot sharp turns and leap, feet churning air,
over jagged rocks and jettison straight off shear drop offs. We whoop and holler, push at each other’s
heels, urging more speed and passing. We
stop on top of a rock overlooking a beaver pond, sweaty pouring off al of
us. I snap a photo: we will want to remember these goofy smiles,
these first days of a new friendship.
And the kids will one day want to remember us like this.
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