Running in that all or nothing way we did as children. Running from and running to without a reason to slow down. I miss the feeling of the speed of light whipping through my hair. I long to run so fast that I pass myself on the way back. I learned as I grew up that this only belongs to children, this natural free-ness when we run. Its not just running, its a statement of life.
When I was 4 or 5, we were living in Warington Virginia. The house is thought of and spoken of in our family as the house Dad built. I do not know how much of the house my father actually built, but he was a carpenter. The house sits back on its large deep lot away from the traffic on Rt. 17. Though our family has not lived in this house since I was young, it still looks like the house my Dad built. I was barely a kid still mostly baby. Running was already in my heart.
There was a pole light down in the yard we would gather around as night fell. The bugs attracted the bats, and the bats attracted us. We would toss little rocks up in the air and watch the bats dive for them. They would realize fast enough that they were too crunchy and go after the bugs again. More often than not me being so small, the rocks did little more than a few feet airborne before landing on my head. There was always teasing about the bats getting into our hair and making a nest, the sneaking up behind and tousling our hair. We would scream with laughter and run swatting at our heads. It was fun and we ran around and danced in the evenings dying light.
When the sun is going down, a new world awakens to run with.
The cornfield next to our yard brought out an abundance of life at night, and that included us. One evening in particular, the sun hanging low in the sky, I was running through the cornfield with my brothers chasing mice. My brothers kept yelling at me to be quiet that I would chase away the mice before they could catch any, but it was warm and getting dark and I was running, how could I contain this joy I felt. There were a lot of itty bitty mice running through that cornfield. I just wanted to be part of the chase, and part of the chase I was. Shortly after being yelled at to hush and stand still, I went running between two rows of corn heading toward home. Splat! My tiny bare foot found a tiny mouse and the whole 35lbs of me flatten that poor mouse to death. I screamed and my brothers and sister came running. I had lifted up my foot and the yuck ran off it, and the mouse’s body twitched to the ground. “Oh gross look what you did!” they all were saying as they came running up and then were bending over and poking at the dead body of the baby mouse. You’re in trouble now, they taunted. They were all mad at me for stepping on this little critter and killing it. I think it was more because, they did not. I ran away crying leaving bits of gore along the way, even the cool green grass could not change the fact that it was a run without joy. I was the only one to catch a mouse – I just had to be a part of the chase. Lucky me.
I have to wonder why I was barefooted, but that was the way it was. Shoes often got taken off and thrown aside if ever put on to begin with. The feel of the grass and earth between the toes is too attractive.
Life got weird for me a few years after the mouse, I started to lose that child’s way of looking at life. Running was never the same. There became a purpose and goal behind it as I aged, and fear … fear that once I started my heart would never allow me stop until I found that cool green grass again.
I can no longer run like the wind, and I have no desire to catch mice anymore for fun. Although…
If I close my eyes and sit real still, I can feel the soft cool grass on my feet as they barely touch the ground…
