Run Free

The curtains blow flagrantly across my room and the bright rising sun pulls down my bed sheets with both the force of its visual energy and warmth of its fiery soul. There are mornings where it is easier to get out of bed than others. 

This breeze is my best friend.

There’s an open mason jar of warm water on my counter. I lift it and peer inside, checking for gecko ordure. Looks safe. I used to like fresh, crisp, ice cold agua. Now I welcome the gentle stream of warm vitality that moistens my dry morning throat.

Seven gulps.

Exhalation.

Sigh.

Cleansed. Awakened. Alive.  

I get glimpses of the garden, the turquoise pool water, the humming-bird-bush, with every flutter of the curtains as the breeze tantalizes my five senses.

My pink sneakers lay begging like a dog besides my door frame.

Sparkly clean.

Mud and thatch washed away from recent hikes.

4-months-virgin to a heart-pounding run.

I look at them and I feel.

Bitter the cold of autumn in New York. Sweet the sensations of Fall on my skin.

My mouth waters.

Pounding the music in my ears. Asking my feet to be light on the pavement.

I bound down the sidewalks.

The headlights of cars are my friends.

The cracks in the pavement are stories.

The breeze in my face is love. Encouragement. Tantalization.

The curtain blows up again and reaches for me.

The map on my wall says I’m in Costa Rica.

The colors in my front yard tell me it doesn’t matter what you call it.

I come to the curtains. I put on a good song. The music awakens me a bit more and I feel my desires come alive.

I pull on the sweet memories of my past and I tie the laces of miles of freedom together and I stand tall.

I hit play and I walk out.

For a mile or two I run to the music of 2006. My iPod stays trapped in time. It easily transports me. I can be here or there in an instant. Time is an elusion. Maps create lines which insinuate destinations. Boundaries. Separations. Limitations.

A few minutes in my sneakers and I realize it’s all a lie.

I can be anywhere I want to be. 

I can be anyone I want to be.

“If one of us aint free then we all to blame.”

Keep running.

I am in Gainesville, Florida. Passing the alligator infested ponds. The O’Dome. The Swamp. The Orange-and-Blue. I am young and easily swayed to choose a path that has been laid before me. I don't stop to wonder if it is the one I want to choose. 

I am running uphill in Rye, New York. The purple “Team in Training” shirts surround me. There are survivors, fighters. There are friends who let go. My sister is somewhere. Her hair falls long when she removes her swim cap that reads “Leukemia & Lymphoma”. A cap that just looks like the turban she wore at five when there was no hair to create warmth. Protection. Immunity. Life force. Freedom. 

She knows what it means to live. I wonder if she knows how often I still run with her. Because of her.

I am in Vietnam and we are crossing a bridge. Training for a race of which we’ll never make it to. Lost passports. What border? What boundaries?

I am in El Salvador. It hurts. The dust in my eyes. The piropos. The stray dogs, begging for a piece of flesh. A peace. Acknowledgement. Nourishment of any form. It's not just the dogs that I run from. Run with. Running. 

My music shuts off. I look down over my left shoulder. Battery low.

I look up. Jue Pucha. Que belleza. 

I hear. I feel. I smile. I breathe. I taste.

What a world before me. It is so f*cking beautiful. Do you see it?

I am in Costa Rica.

Maybe.

If I want to be. 

I see a beak. I recognize those colors. He flies into another tree and I follow him with my eyes. He invites me. His movements mimic my morning curtains. Side to side. Asking you to come, but leaving the choice up to you. Giving you a taste of what is out there. Inviting, but not begging.

“Follow me,” he says. But don’t hold on too long.

I love his beak in all it’s colors. I watch it. Side-to-side.

Suddenly, the beak multiples. One-by-one. Each leading me to the next.

A tree of tucans. Sitting on branches. Singing about life. Or maybe sorrows.

Songs of love. Or maybe sadness.

“What a joy it is to be alive. To get another chance.”

One by one they take off. I count them. 8.

8 tucans.

I am mesmerized. 

The world, the breeze, the colors, the sounds of the world are a violin that I don’t know how to play anymore.

But it sounds just as sweet.

Everyday is a new song.

I let go of the birds and I smile and my eyes well up and I laugh at myself.

I turn around and begin the journey home.

The leaves of trees rustle. I feel snakes by the roadside, crawling with venom. Peaceful by nature, poisonous when provoked.

I see the windmills turning silently atop the mountains that I call my neighbors.

Empty houses sit behind gated walls and I wonder what lies on the table inside.

Sometimes I kick a rock, avoid a dip in the road.

I hear my breath and the clapping sound of the soles of my feet dancing on the soul of the Earth.

I smile again. Not just in my mind. But deep in my heart and childlishly on my face.

The run home is faster than the run away.

“None but ourselves can free our minds.”

"Laying in Fall"
New York. 2012.