Revelations in the Park

I listen to SEAL as I run in the park. Loneliness is a killer, he says. And everyday, I gulp hard, shut my ears, eyes and mind to that thought and wish it away. But today, I just run, harder and harder. Not away from the thought, but with it, just as I feel the wind running along with me, the dark night shifting in the shadows on my path, the single drop of sweat trickling down my face, saltwater streaks that tally the strength of hope and will. Loneliness is a killer only if you let it be. Pain can only hurt you if you let it lash out at you in fury.

Let it wash over you. Run its course. Like an ever-rising-falling sweep of the tide.

I run today, without minding the sharp, shooting jabs in my stomach. The cramp that used to stop me even before I began to run…the benumbing wish to give up before the beginning has begun, is suddenly gone. I pause the thought. No, the cramp is still there, but it doesn’t have the capacity to give me pain anymore. I feel free, like Forrest Gump. My heart had leaped when I saw him run across America. I had joyfully chorused “Run, Forrest, Run”. But today I feel what he felt. I understand that those words mean freedom.

It means breaking free of the inanities of life. It means moving towards a higher order of things.

I run, to embrace the lonely night. The dog-walkers are all gone home. The last of the soccer players in the parking lot drive away. The lights are almost out in patches of the track. The night sky seems clearer here and the clouds are hanging low and still on the mountains beyond. The pale moon, the faint, faraway stars, the looming silhouette of the mountains…. And for a moment, I’m all alone. A moment when I own the park, this personal universe.

Tonight, the world is mine. And loneliness becomes liberating. A feeling of truth and power. Of strength and spirit. Of hope and life.

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