Midnight Highway
(Thoughts on running)
Saturday mornings
With Melissa and her Wire Fox Terrier Miko
Trotting, talking, scuttling along the perimeter
Of her-tree lined Chicago neighborhood
Just off the Francisco brown line train stop
Or along the lakefront from Lee Street to Noyes
Thirteen-fourteen minute mile times
With occasional indulgent stops for community gardens or pie
Two thirty-something-year-old girls
eventually sharing a first pregnancy together
Attempt to run and then trot then stroll
Two old friends discussing pelvic pain, gestational diabetic diets, and baby registries
getting comments from strangers on our adorable pregnant pairing
An unexpected and early birth of my first child occurs hours after
Strolling with Melissa along the lake followed by
a bench view of the water for an hour,
Two round-bellied friends and an August morning breeze
No better way would I have spent the hours before delivering
A six-pound baby girl
Running-trotting-jogging-shuffling
A self-regulation tool I have used in almost all life transitions
Angst, sadness, heartbreak, or the need to ponder life circumstances and change
all seem to launch me from zero to multiple miles
Six miles around the fields of West Lafayette
for the blurred seasons of winter and spring 2000
Trying to stimulate my capillary system in an effort
to rebuild and repair the biggest broken heart or
Lunchtime jaunts along the Mississippi with Lisa
As we name origins and insertions of muscle groups in preparation for
Our anatomical exams or
The day I transferred to Northwestern University and ran
To Lake Michigan before even one box was unpacked
(tangible happiness I had not encountered since
previously mentioned broken heart almost two years prior) or
Training for a half marathon with Elizabeth
after the move from St Paul back to Chicago and
transition from being single to being married and
becoming an occupational therapist facilitating neural healing or
Senior year of high school
Friday nights around and around an indoor track with Megan
Dreaming beautiful faulty vision boards for our future
not realizing we had been running all that time and
eventually coining the term “midnight highway” for that transformation where your
breath
Just
floats
steadily, easily, expanding and contracting above two legs
Lightly treading, carrying, propelling a body forward
Twenty-four years later the midnight highway finds me on an elevated track
Overlooking a half court where my five-year-old son kicks a soccer ball
Melissa once likened him to a bouncy ball
I cannot unsee this comparison
his movements more vertical than lateral
and, like me, his big feelings more vertical than lateral
This track located above my son's Sunday morning soccer class
helps meet my sudden compulsion to run 3-4-5 miles as often as possible
My son smiles and waves up at me as
Something about when a baby turns five
The freedoms and the growing up-ness
The letting go of being a mama to a baby-toddler-preschooler
The ability to return and inspect one's own life
I ponder the root of this blindside angst and
hyperawareness of transition
That my body increasingly intuits by
The need to feel air moving past my body
The desire to feel both the limits and rhythm of my slow stride
The search for the beauty of steady breath
Which I envision hovering above my body like the dot of a lowercase i
Or the image of the holy spirit floating above the apostles' in my daughter’s illustrated storybook bible
Or the wheels of an airplane as they just lift off the tarmac
Until I enter the space of the night highway
Effortless propulsion forward wrapped within a tunnel of unknown
Thoughts and sensory flooding, everything external disappears
Alone with a secure and steady breath
It will carry me through
Stretching toward the clarity of dawn
* Picture: Francisco El platform is so beautiful (photo: July 2023)
** Fun resource: How to Write One Song by Jeff Tweedy.
*** Running playlist: My Autumn 2023 Running Playlist
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