The Under Review - Issue 4 | Summer 2021

10
adjust to new requirements. More oxygen is needed; the body is asking; the heart pumps its reply to the
request. Within minutes, I have no awareness of anything besides my legs. As they warm, they reach, fall
and dig. It becomes a dance: reach, fall, and dig, each leg taking its turn like a tango on fast-forward.
Always the warmth is what registers first. Heat grows from my quads and calves meeting somewhere
along my buttocks, psoas, and shins, wrapping my legs in friction. I am aware of this temperature
adjustment, aware that I can still feel these legs, aware that there have been times when the numbness
erases my connection there. And still there are places along the map of my body where the heat does not
register. I catch a graze of something soft along my ankle and I fear my shoelace is not tight enough; half a
loop has come loose and is flapping along with each step. I venture a glance down, always a risk. My largest
lesion is near the c4 vertebra and I often induce tingling on my left side when I bend my neck to look down.
I feel a prickle in my hamstring on that side but nothing more. Good news is the shoes are both securely
tied. Maybe a leaf grazed me; maybe a phantom zing electrified my ankle. No need to stop, to stoop, to
start again. So I quicken my pace.
Start slow, I hear my coach say. This is the best way to ensure you’ll have some fuel in the tank for the
finish. But I have been indoors too long. I have been cooped up and need to push myself, extend my
distance. I need to know that I can still do this thing, this wonderful awakening that renews me each time I
quicken my pace.
The legs again call to me. I feel their strength as I near a small hill, taking its slope into my stride. My lungs
respond and increase the rate of oxygen. I huff and breathe, swing my arms faster and ask my legs to
oblige. The hill climbs me, not the other way around. It faces my challenge and, in response, I give it all I’ve
got. My heart is an audible drum guiding the orchestra of my body. All parts are in harmony and reach full
crescendo as I crest the hill and head down the other side.
And I love it. I love that feeling. Satori. Erudition. Enlightenment.
Here, along these miles and distances, I forget about fear. As long as I can still move in the ways that
remove me from myself, I am free. But once home, after a long run or even a short jog, I am left with me. I
come home to the fear that awaits. Will there be a next time? Will I have the courage or connection to try
again? The connection is what gets me. This is completely out of my control. I could wake up tomorrow
and have the whole thing dissolve like yesterday’s rain evaporating from the grass into ethereal mists that
rise into invisibility. I wonder, too, if that does happen, how much of the many miles I’ve run will be
forgotten by my thinking mind and by my muscle memory. Regardless of my triumphant run, fear always
re-enters my imagination.
THE UNDER REVIEW