Yesterday out on another hot run in beautiful Saint Simons Island, I swung a loop around the little airstrip.
This is where I have been fading…that long shadeless backstretch of sidewalk along the runway. I saw a man walking way up ahead. I thought…if I just get past him, I too can walk.
I passed him and walked. But then I remembered those 60-year-old fairies who flew by me the last 250 yards of the Disney marathon — so I started running again. Very slowly.
Even with my iPod, I could hear the planes coming and going to my left. They were zooming from behind me down the runway either to land or take off.
As they jutted by, it was very evident even to a know-nothing-about-aviation person like myself; that one’s in reverse, slowing down and that one is revving up for flight.
The sound, speed, whether the plane had started to lift. (Obviously the biggest clue.)
By quick observation, Where are you? Are you slowing down or revving up?
Now some days, I feel like both — within the same hour. But someone observing your life from afar, someone running a very slow pace off to the side of your life in the heat of a September’s morning, desperately trying to stay ahead of a man with thirty pounds to lose around his mid-section — what would they think?
I love to watch those little planes take off.
Even in the heat of a September morning.
Breaking free.
