Looking Up
These days, when I run, I find myself speeding up, looking over my shoulder like we used to. I don’t run far anymore, but can still imagine a disc in flight, see it flying over and past me as I race to meet it somewhere down field. Maybe it will stall long enough for me to catch-up. Yes, that feeling — of it soaring while I vie for position and rise up to grab it before anyone else can. Or maybe one of us will dive in front and lay-out as it comes back down off the loft created by a teammate’s expert spin. I played for over twenty-five years, prolonging childhood while chasing that feeling. I miss it, running on well-groomed fields, being in that kind of shape, playing game after game, ignoring pain and injury, fending off the tired that comes on at the end of a long weekend of play. I’m no longer fast, but can still run. I never could jump, and no longer really try. But the feeling is present, something your body doesn’t forget. Part of me.
When I first started, we did everything, including measuring the lines of the fields we’d play on. After a while, I learned that my stride measured exactly one meter, two of which make up my height, and seventy of which make a field. I took pride in setting up fields approximating right angles and rectangles. Harder that it sounds, and something that took some patience as well as at least one other person to eyeball a line after cones had been laid. As I walked, I looked down at dew-covered grass, sometimes counting out loud to keep track, feet not yet bound by the cleats that would propel my passion for flight. It would be years before I looked up to appreciate exactly what we had going on. Years later, Mary taught me the phenomenon of second story viewing, where one looks up while walking in nature.
“What the point otherwise,” her cousins would say on long summer walks in Maine. With this group, you’d be walking along, mind wandering, when one of the would shout, “second story viewing.” Not because of some great animal or view, but because of the glory of nature.
As we come out of this pandemic, I’m remind myself of this phenomenon, to look up, take stock of the world around me. There’s a lot to be thankful for, and yes, a lot to be worried about. But I suffer glass half-full syndrome, see a disc soaring, the possibilities ahead of me as it flies past into some yet to be determined outcome. Mine! I can hear myself think.
On occasion, as our teams vied for national and world championships, I felt a phenomenon where the field got smaller, my conditioning fueling the ultimate goal of getting open, my ability to cover ground seemingly effortless. Running had the feeling of floating on air, like the kite surfers who rise-up on a foil as they reach certain speed. We trained hard to find this place, climbed stadium stairs, ran sprints, put in our ten thousand hours. All of this training paid off not in trophies won, but feelings had. Some twenty-five years later, a single daily sprint up a gradual hill behind our house mimics these moments.
Every day for the last six months, since it got too cold and dark to ride in the evening, I run instead. About a half mile, around the block. Once in the morning, and again at night. Recently I’ve started chasing the disc on the uphill, like the horse back to stable.
“What’s that man doing?” I imagine the neighbors saying.
“Put it up!” we’d say when we had the feeling. Open! First to the spot, the intersection of spinning disc and racing man. Pump fake, and let it rip.
I feel blessed to have these memories. Blessed to still be able to conjure up the feeling, if fleeting, though maybe you share it with me. Blessed to have played this game with all of you.
