it, if not to him (he died shortly after the release of book) then for me. I still had control of my muscles; I could command them to swat at a fly or caress my love and the book allowed me to see the privilege in such actions. So I decided to run. It wasn’t a pretty thing. My body balked and attempted at every possible juncture to stop what it saw as a revolt against everything we held dear. It came up with reasons why I shouldn’t go to the gym––it was a long and compelling list––or run outside around my block. The gym was full of grunting panting slippery people, my knees were sore, my head hurt, it was so cold out etc. It tried to convince me to sit down with our old friend Netflix and a nice buttery bowl of popcorn but it underestimated my resolve. It wasn’t so much that I was running for that man as much as because of him. Despite the fact that I am statically closer to my grave than my birth, I still have big plans for myself. None of them involve running in a formal way. I hold no delusions that my fifteen minute mile will earn me the title of “athlete”. Running has become my metaphor. I spent so many years of my life classified with nouns that I never felt suited me. I’ve always been a big one for verbs. I like the action behind them. Build, believe, laugh, there is such promise in this kind of intellectual movement. Conversely, I’ve had very little use for nouns. This aversion likely started in my middle school science class where we were taught the genus and kingdoms of plant species. All those classifications made me dizzy. I couldn’t keep the larger categories untangled from the smaller ones. Is a kingdom a part of species or the other way around? Later, when my own personal kingdom added species of its own, I struggled with the label mother and, later still, when kingdom took on a religious tone, I became addled by the classification of missionary. As I stumbled out of my youth the nouns came at me with alarming accuracy, Christian, uneducated, waitress, and even at one point, homeless. Despite this disappointing parade of nouns announcing my weaknesses and vulnerabilities, verbs marched in to offer hope. Educate ushered in graduate which sprouted itself into teach and publish. And now I find myself full circle, I’m in love with the verb run and in being so, embrace a new noun, runner. I will run towards my life, towards my love, towards myself while I still am able. My new nouns capture my life in non-wheezing breathless ways: teacher, wife, writer, woman and even queen of my happy kingdom.
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