(Originally posted to Facebook)
Runnin' Down A Dream: The Adventures of Barefoot Beirdo
by Barefoot Beirdo on Monday, February 20, 2012 at 4:54pm ·
Running through the streets, I notice a large outdoor mall to my right. A bunch of tall, glammed-out women are milling around, wearing bright colors. I realize that this must be Long Beach, where there is a weekly screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show; and therefore, these are not actually "tall, glammed-out women."
A large group of them have congregated at a Metro stop on a concrete island in the middle of a 3-way intersection. As I run past them, I see that they are all wearing orange and yellow unitards. One of them - a Latino man in his early 20's - mentions that this guy just texted him, and his friends give him some friendly ribbing about this new guy who he is so excited about. There are many uncovered, street-level Metro-stops in this part of Long Beach... I think I'm Downtown - perhaps on Pine Ave.
I circle back to the large mall, where more of these guys in orange & yellow unitard/drag outfits are peppered about, wandering and purchasing tickets to the movie. I run over to a spot in between two tall escalators. Above me, and to my right, is an overhanging balcony - the topmost level of the outdoor mall.
Coming up the ascending escalator to my left are a group of yellow/orange-spandex-clad bicyclists with helmets, sunglasses, and all the hard-core cyclist-gear. Gathered above, leaning on the balcony railing, are dozens of the yellow/orange-unitard-clad men in drag. Now they are all wearing bright orange and yellow feathers around their necks and heads too, and have on thick, fake black eyelashes.
As I jog in place in between these two groups of men, a moment is shared in which they notice - and gaze upon - one another with surprise, then all notice me looking back and forth between them. The two groups fall silent; each embarrassed to be confronted with a group of people from a completely different social demographic wearing almost the same bright, bold, tight-fitting outfits.
Still jogging in place, I break the silence by saying "Now, isn't this beautiful?"
One of the queens shoots me a disdainful look, and says something about me being nothing but some New-Age Hippie distance-runner who deserves to be pissed on.
As he says this, I am still taking delight in the synchronistic pageantry playing out before me; but in my mind's eye a vision begins to take form of an ant - suspended in some imaginary vertical plane of perspective - rapidly transforming from a state of life and movement to death, then physical decay; it's stomach bloating, then forming a cavity that grows ever larger until the dead, bloated stomach hollows and the eyes and limbs of the insect begin to break down...
...all as this queen is saying that I should be pissed upon.
* * * * * *
I've just jumped onto the Prince Memorial Greenway, about 15 minutes away from where I started my run. The Greenway trail starts in Downtown Santa Rosa. I'll run it about an hour West - until it ends - then run it back to Downtown, head South on Santa Rosa Blvd for about 15 minutes, then turn around and head North, towards home. Three-hour run today.
Approaching the underpass of the Third Street Bridge, I spot a "Lost Dog" flyer taped to a wall to the right of the trail. The strange thing is that right above the flyer some of the white paint of the wall is chipped away, revealing black paint underneath. The negative space of the chipped-away paint forms a silhouette that appears to be the same shape of the head of the dog in the photograph on the flyer. I'm looking at a dog, and above the dog looms the shadow of its head.
When running along Poppy Creek - along the Greenway, here - it is important to stay to the right; the reason being that bicyclists tear down this trail and pass on the left. About two weeks ago a runner's skull was fractured along this route. Although my experience with cyclists has led me to stereotype them as oftentimes dangerous and filled with a bloated sense of entitlement, it must be said that this runner was partly at fault. She was listening to an iPod, and had ambled from the right side of the road to the middle to turn around and head back. With the music in her ears, she did not hear the approaching bicyclist. After hitting the runner the cyclist fled the scene, so the person's identity is not known. Last I heard, the lady who was hit was alive, but had to check back into the hospital because of all sorts of health issues.
Like most people, I love music. And I'm often listening to music as I run... music I'm playing back in my mind. It's a fun mental exercise. But running on streets or trails while wearing headphones is like texting while driving. People who do these things say that they know how to do them carefully or that they are good multi-taskers or whatever; but, by definition, one cannot divide one's attention while still giving full attention to the task at hand. Multitasking in the kitchen or the workplace is one thing - but it has no place on roadways. I'd rather be on a freeway full of drunk drivers than texting drivers - drunk drivers are usually aware of their impairment and trying hard to function in spite of it - while texting drivers are generally in denial of their recklessness and paying far less attention to their driving. Running is the same thing - a sensual experience. To block out one of your senses while navigating through an environment shared with others is to compromise the safety of yourself and others.
Having said that, I drank 3 beers - good, strong Porters - in the couple of hours leading up to this 3-hour run; making this possibly the longest run that I've ever set off upon while buzzed. However, I have done longer runs under the influence of much more powerful substances. I guess you could say that when I'm not on my soapbox (see rant above) I'm on my high horse... but these are stories for a later post.
For the last year-and-a-half, I've been running in Vibram five-finger shoes. I'm a big fan. Running in them simulates barefoot running, allowing the complex network of muscles in your foot to do the work that is normally done for them by excessively padded shoes. However, a minimal amount of padding is provided by the Vibrams - which in my mind is necessary for the modern runner whose feet have not become thick with calluses from wandering barefoot throughout their life.
I could use some new Vibrams. These ones I've been wearing since I ditched my traditional running shoes a year and ½ ago. Since 2012 began, I've been running in them six days per week, and putting in quite a few miles. Before this, when I lived in Hermosa Beach, I would only wear them once, sometimes twice, per week. Most of my runs were on the beach – barefooted - in the soft sand. With all the recent wear-and-tear, though, these Vibrams are thrashed. Dime-sized holes have opened up in the padding of each shoe. The one in the sole of the left shoe is directly under the ball of my big toe. The natural way of running – when not wearing a shoe that causes a heal-strike from the excessive padding - involves landing and springing off the balls of your feet, so this is a bad place to have your foot exposed.
A few days ago, I doctored my Vibrams up with some masking and packing tape, but I'm going to need some new shoes soon. I tried on some Fila Skeletoes at Big 5 yesterday - they are on sale. Turns out the Skeletoes suck, though.
The reason I've been putting off buying new Vibrams is that I'm hoping to talk them into sponsoring me on the adventure I'll be embarking on, come the first day of Spring. And I've put off writing to them because I thought it would be better to have the blog set up before making my pitch to them just so that they could get an idea of what I plan on doing - although the posts that take place here in Santa Rosa will be more about providing context for the story that will be told as the adventure develops.
I'm a runner who runs after his dreams, and I mean this literally. Upon waking in the morning, I immediately write down my dreams. Then I go running, with my dreams in mind.
The way I currently live - rooted to one place - doesn't allow me the complete freedom to run where my dreams might guide me. But since I will soon be living nomadically, the opportunity will be there to choose a course of travel that is guided by my psyche. That is the basic concept behind the adventure I've planned, and the daily posts that I'll write. Each morning, I'll record my dreams and post them. I'll set off on a run - wearing the light backpack containing my belongings - and hold the previous night's dreams in my mind. With my focus on staying present through sensual awareness, I will look for the signs and travel intuitively. I plan on doing this for nine months, starting on March 21st and ending on December 21st. You may have heard some speculation regarding this latter date. Something about an ancient culture in Southern Mexico/Central America. That's another thing I'll be writing more about later.
On my left - Southward, on the other side of the creek - is a farm with a small lake and some horses. There are two horses just a few feet inside the chain-link fence dividing the property from the creek and trail. There is a person standing to the side of each of them. One, or both, of the horses is whinnying, and perhaps because of this four more horses are galloping from the South to join them. The approaching horses are all light brown in color, and running shoulder-to-shoulder. One of the horses by the fence is brown like these others, and the other one is white.
On my right are fields. Farmland. I just passed a long stretch of vineyards, and in the background - to the North - are lush, rolling hills of a light, grassy green color, speckled with the darker green of scattered woods.
Poppy Creek is the name of this Santa Rosa creek that the Prince Memorial Greenway runs along. It's a really beautiful place to run; to get lost in thought, or to lose your thoughts.
One-third of this three-hour run has now passed, and I'm looking at these stunningly green pastures to my right, dotted with yellow dandelions. So beautiful. Since I run this trail fairly regularly, I am aware of how these pastures get to be so green. Scattered at regular intervals are these mechanized spraying devices. They are probably about 10 feet tall and remind me of the robot from the 80s movie "Short Circuit;" only instead of talking like a nerdy, English-speaking R2D2, these robots shoot out this putrid-yellow, greenish-colored mist. The first time I ran by it I figured it was probably a pesticide, and I felt a twinge of self-righteous "Future of Food"-inspired indignation towards the farmers who owned this land.
Over the course of a few runs, I finally began to realize that this mist was usually accompanied by a manure-smell. So, I realized that the stuff is probably some sort of watery manure-mist, rather than pesticide - I hope so, anyway. It seems better this way, more natural - even though it is still kind of nasty to imagine that as I'm smelling this stuff I'm basically breathing vaporized cow dung into my lungs. But hey - circle of life, right?
I think I mentioned that the Greenway trail runs East-West. There are all sorts of side-trails that go off to the North in between the farms, and one day I jogged up one of them out of curiosity. Where the trail ended at a locked gate - the entrance to some private property - there were a couple of unpainted wooden barns to my left. Between the barns was an idling pick-up truck, the bed of which was positioned under this machine in which a large funnel, on the underside of a buzzing metallic box - attached to pipes that emerged from the barns - dropped manure into the truck's bed. I'm guessing this manure was processed within the buzzing box from the cow dung piped in from the barns.
The bed of this truck was just overflowing with manure, which was the same color as the mist that sprays out of these Short-Circuit robots that are stationed at intervals throughout these lovely green pastures. I guess the farmer drives this "dump truck" to some sort of centralized mechanical distributor that pipes the poop to the robots.
And there you have it: that's how farming works. A postmodern teaming of bovines and shit-spewing robots.
I'm from the suburbs; so this version of rural-reality will do for me. Besides, I've never really been much of an academic; I tend to learn through observation and let my imagination fill in the blanks. Maybe this is why I have a tendency to view the world through the lens of magical-realism.
So, I just reached the Western end of the Greenbelt trail, crossed a rural road, and entered a grassy-trail marked by a hand-painted brown sign with yellow letters that reads "Ewok Trail." This is only the 2nd time I've ventured onto this trail, which continues along the Greenbelt route but is not paved with asphalt and doesn't appear to be officially maintained. Last time, I went about a quarter of a mile before the route became too congested with fallen trees and thorny vines to continue (I removed quite a few of the thorns from my Vibrams and was grateful that none found the holes in the soles!). This time, it seems like the trail has been cleared a bit, as least as far into it as I can see from the entrance here.
Passing under the large branch of a giant gnarled oak tree, I see something that wasn't here last time - a thick rope hangs down over the trail, ending with a square plank of wood about a foot from the ground - a homemade tree-swing. Might have to try this out on the way back. It'll be nice to take this trail further this time if it has indeed been cleared out further-along as much as it has been in the first couple hundred feet.
Well, it's starting to get a little more rugged. Still somewhat cleared-out, but I'm approaching a thatch of fallen trees - actually this might be about where I had to turn back last time. I'm running over slick, uneven sticks and probably won't be able to maintain this for long.
There is one advantage to spending a little time on this more remote part of the trail, though. One must remember that, in order to keep up the level of hydration required to be a distance runner, piss-breaks will be common on runs of more than a couple of hours.
Ugh, yeah, I'm going to have to turn back. This trail starts twisting and turning as it becomes a trail of fallen branches - which is fun but, once again, it has become too thorny and uneven to risk going any further, and it is becoming impossible to keep up a running pace.
Finished up with my wet yellow signature. Sometimes I think about how at some point during my upcoming travels I'm probably going to be caught pissing by a cop or somebody. Hopefully I'll be able to explain myself and not be mistaken for a flasher or something.
Before leaving the Ewok trail I take a running leap onto the wooden platform of the makeshift rope-swing; but I time the landing entirely wrong, and my left leg slips downward while my right leg shoots outward. I nearly strain my groin. I'll give it another try next time - but only if the Ewoks come down from the trees and show me how it's done.
Now I'm on the Greenbelt again, headed back the way I came. It's a beautiful day. 4:45 in the afternoon. The sky is clear, except for a spot directly to the East where there's a cluster of puffy, white clouds resting right on top of the distant mountains. At a glance, you might mistake these clouds for a small cluster of snow-capped mountains towering above a larger number of green ones.
A cyclist whizzes by on my left and, turning my head to that side, my gaze falls once again on these vividly green pastures to the North with yellow speckles of dandelions. The yellows seem fuzzily blurred over the green, giving the scene the look of an Impressionist painting. Back behind the fields a big, orange barn stands out, most likely housing some livestock that are manufacturing the raw materials that will be piped to the manure truck and distributed amongst the robot armada. Yep, I'm starting to make sense of this world.
Beautiful day. Clear skies. Very little wind. Calm. Sunny.
Gnarled oaks, lined with lichen and creeping vines blossoming little cottony white flowers, are all along the creek. Ducks float idly, occasionally quacking and ruffling their feathers. Sometimes these small rusty-orange-breasted birds fly by, individually or in small groups. My guess is that they are Orioles, because they look like they are wearing Baltimore Orioles uniforms. Every once in awhile - in a field or down by the creek - I spot a graceful, delicate egret.
Most of challenges I've had this year as a runner have been joint-issues - sore ankles and knees. This is due partly to the fact that I am still relatively new to "barefoot" running but mostly because of the drastic increase in mileage in preparation for my upcoming adventure. Today, however - following my first 100-mile week - I'm experiencing a lot of muscle tightness, particularly in my lower right calf. On the left side it is even lower... actually, I think it is more of an Achilles tendon-thing on the left side. The calf started acting up a couple of days ago. Neither of these things is likely a long-term problem, just little adjustments that my body has to make to the new regimen; adjustments that slow me down a little bit. In general, I've been running progressively slower this year and have felt a little tighter and gimpier with the increase in mileage. I'm hoping it is the same thing that happened when I started running Marathons. They say that as a beginning distance-runner, you have to wear your muscles down to the point where they scarify and reconnect, thereby getting stronger and larger... or, something like that. The process might be starting again as I reach a level of training that is approaching that of an Ultra-marathoner.
My thoughts have turned to the dream I had the other day where I was running in Long Beach and started jogging in place between the two groups that were wearing the yellow-and-orange unitard-type outfits. There was the group to my left of bicyclists coming up an escalator; and the drag-queens on a balcony above me and to my right, waiting around for the start of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
The drag queens were quite flamboyant and frivolous, while the bicyclists were extremely macho and self-serious. Each was embarrassed when confronted by the other group; ashamed to be sharing such similar outfits with people whom they considered so different than themselves and their own group. And there I was jogging in place between them, saying, "Well, isn't this beautiful?" The statement was a balance of earnestness and irony. I really did find it beautiful that these two disparate groups were dressed the same, but I was also amused by their opposing and extreme countenances and their mutual unwillingness to look in the mirror.
As I pondered this while out on runs in the days that followed, I realized that this dream showed me jogging in place between my own masculine and feminine sides. To paraphrase Carl Jung, we are all essentially bi-sexual beings whose sexual identities lie not at one extreme or the other, but at shifting points along a continuum. Working from this model, the bicyclists represent my masculinity and the drag-queens, my femininity. The two opposing groups shared a similar uniform, but were unwilling to accept their similarity. Two archetypes, faced with their own corollary energy and unwilling to accept their shadow as their own.
Along these lines, the other thing I thought of was that these groups represent two ways of approaching my journey: the self-serious, masculine bicyclists represent the self-importance and sanctimoniousness that I have been projecting at times on my future endeavor; the virtuosity, the righteousness, the spirituality... the "Hero's Journey."
The drag queens represent another side - a preening side that seeks attention, that is representative of the "Fool's Journey."
I think it's the same journey. I started re-reading "The Hero With A Thousand Faces" by Joseph Campbell, which I think will help me develop context for the writing that I intend to do on this trip. As much as my ego wants to frame this as a Hero's journey - an undeniably powerful device in terms of story - it will be useful for me to balance this viewpoint by also acknowledging the foolishness inherent in what I'm planning. The Tarot begins with The Fool setting off upon his journey. What always strikes a familiar chord in my armchair-studies of mythology are the corresponding archetypes of The Fool and The Sage. These two energies mirror one another. Having reflected upon the roles I play in my mind and in my relationships, it seems like when I regard myself as foolish - yet with a spirit of empathy toward myself - the opportunity arises to be The Sage. However, at other times I get sanctimonious, idealistic, and caught up in my own pseudo-wisdom. Regarding myself as The Sage, I become The Fool.
This dream was showing me the two mirror images that I find myself jogging in place in-between.
At the point of the trail I'm moving along now, a line of trees form a windbreak to the North. The sun is dropping, and scattered rays shoot through the tree-wall, casting the foliage along the creek in clover-greens and rusty oranges.
Passing beneath the Dutton street bridge, my eyes flash on this essential message from a tagger: "Rorts Fuck Pop." Not nearly as clever as the message that my favorite local tagger places after his name, "Producing Sick Fonts." Love it.
Now - a few minutes after spotting that last tag - I see another bit of tagging that I'm guessing to be a curse against another crew: "Fuck Toy Mob."
Having completed the round trip back Downtown to where the trail begins, I've decided that instead of turning South along car-filled Santa Rosa Blvd, I'll head back West again - but this time on the trail at the South side of the creek, which I've never done before. It is 15 minutes to home from the start of the trail, which gives me 34 minutes to kill on this new trail - I'll turn back around after 17 minutes. I guess I've been running for roughly 2 hours and 10 minutes.
I spot a house on a street just South of the trail with a picket fence that - instead of the standard white - alternates between browns, pinks, greens, oranges, and reds. The colors turn something that would have gone unnoticed into something eye-catching, quirky, and fun.
The trail South of the Creek has dead-ended at one of the creek-overpasses, so I'll just run up and down some hills for a while.
Now I'm headed back into Downtown Santa Rosa, with about 2 miles remaining on a run that will probably end up being between 21 and 22 miles. My legs are shot! Before my usual Friday-off yesterday, I'd run - as I mentioned - 100 miles over six days. So, it isn't so much today's mileage that has worn me out as the crazy last week in which I've run further than in any week of my life. Finding the motivation has been easy, though, knowing that the training I put in now will allow me to maximize the distance I'm able to travel leading up to a Winter Solstice that is sure to capture the imagination of the world.
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