Vitamin Choose

 

I awaken to a crisp winter morning, the kind that calls for a jog. When I check out at Andy’s, I inform the cashier I’ll be parked in his lot for a while. Then I adjust my wool cap, don my thick gloves, and set out.

The sun, not yet committed to shine, hovers just above the horizon. It’s light outside, but just barely. People scurry down sidewalks in quick, jerky bursts: They’re too stiff to saunter, too chilly too chat.

I carefully pick up my speed, testing the frost for safe footing. On my left, traffic-sounds pulse beneath the podcast that drones my ears. I rarely listen to words, but today, with my plans to run far, I know the distraction will help me.

My body leans into a sprint, and I deliberately shorten my stride. Only during this, my forty-third year, have I discovered the magic of moderation. Until recently, I have approached life in one of my two preferred gears – Full Speed or Full Stop. It took a cancer scare, a surgery, long years of poor health, and the endless quiet of quarantine to help me discover this third option.

“I can jog long distances!” I crowed to my husband one day in late spring. “I just need to slow myself down!”

I know he responded with laughter, but this discovery has transformed my life. Choosing my pace gives me freedom! Now, I finish my runs with pleasantly tired lungs instead of the asthmatic puffs of my past. Now, when I run, I feel joy.

Today, that joy arrives through my senses. To my east, the dusky Blue Mountains shoulder the shreds of last night’s fog. Overhead, a houndstooth-patterned shawl of silvery clouds drapes half of the brightening the sky. In a field to my left, the sweetness of summer-baled hay fills the air, transporting me to my childhood for the time it takes to jog by. Frost formations lace the sidewalk at my feet, their delicate patterns miraculously unscathed by my steps.

Onward I run, steeping myself in this day, in this silence I share with the still-waking world. I reach the end of my route, nod to the long, waiting road, then turn around to head home. When I arrive at my car, I’m breathing a little from the exertion, but I feel like I could go on.

With a pang that feels like goodbye, I settle into my wide, heated seat. I shift my car into gear. I drive toward home.

The sun has decided to stay. It casts loving glances upon this small corner of earth, and a thousand frozen crystals respond. They shimmer and wink, and I sigh. This simple decision – the choice to move slower through certain hard tasks – has given me countless moments like this one. Moments when vistas of beauty unfurl like maps on a gray, grade-school wall. Moments when time, or me, or both of us, stand still. Moments when reverence is all that remains.

My breath catches, and I smile. Who knew one hour could contain so much joy? Like a many-movement symphony squeezed into one simple song, moments like this leave me wordless. Transcendent. Free.  

I cruise down familiar streets toward my home. The rest of the weekday stretches out like the road left untouched on my run. Will I race ahead in high gear, pushing for efficiency, dominion, and speed? Will I let boredom or fatigue stop me cold?

I shake my head. Today, I will not do either. Today I’ll choose that grand middle way.

I tap my brakes. Check the scenery. And move on.