Early Run
Reflecting on my one run of the '10s
Link:
Run for Your Life: A magazine about everyday runners, by Luke Leighfield. Here’s one of my favorite bits (it’s a series of interviews):
Sponsored Message:
I’m happy to say that this issue of Drawing Links is sponsored by Psychopolitica, a twice-monthly illustrated newsletter by my Russian friend Nikita Petrov. Psychopolitica is strange and personal, and reading it sometimes makes me feel like I’m dreaming, or wiggling a tooth in a dream. Check it out! (Nikita and I once bonded over our mutual appreciation of the mystery of reality.)
Elsewhere:
“When I was 11 or so, my mom and I were driving on a snowy day in Toronto…” A comic from the great Ruth Chan on Instagram. Also, a follow-up.
“The primal scene of jealousy is this: I see a mark on my lover’s body, and my mind traces it to Her. How do I respond? You imagine I feel angry at being robbed of what is mine; or afraid of losing him altogether. But those are not my real emotions; they are merely the faces my jealousy wears when I am in the business of eliciting sympathy from you. The inner truth of what I feel is so much more maddening than anger and so much more violent than fear: it is desire.” Philosopher Agnes Callard in The Point, on jealousy: “The Other Woman.”
“You’re in a conversation, and it seems like the other person has been waiting for the slightest thing to jump on, to prove you wrong, preach their view, or assert a preconceived idea.” I liked this short essay on “Predatory Listening,” which I have definitely done. [Ten Percent Happier]
“Watch anyone with a ponytail run, and you can see their hair repeatedly describe a figure-eight in the air, responding to the forces generated by the running. But their heads stay still, their eyes and gaze level.” NYT: “Running Is a Total Body Affair.” ∞
I was always embarrassed by the fact I couldn't run.
Like, I could physically move myself along at a greater-than-walking speed, but I relate to not being a runner. My face would burn. My lungs would burn. My back would burn. My extraordinarily flat feet would burn. My shame would burn. Suffice to say: this is not a hurdle I overcame (pun neither intended nor discarded).
That burn in my back manifested as nerve pain in my hip severe enough to derail my nascent stay-at-home dad career a couple months just a few months into the job. I was 32 and had a blown disc in my back. They took out some of the disc, then some more, then fused it all together a year or two later.
Cut to five years later. I'm working for LocalTechCo and go in for a massage, which they provided free onsite. The guy takes a long look at me and says, "You know your left leg is longer than your right leg?"
I went to a podiatrist who sent me to get a Scanogram (Actually A Thing). Sure enough, my left leg is four-tenths of an inch longer than my right. Now I walk around with a quarter-inch lift in one shoe (any larger and my foot would fall out of a regular shoe) and it's done a lot to eliminate the back pain.
I've been thinking a lot about it again lately. I have to tell you, this revelation fuuuucked me uuuup. That tiny difference—it had such an outsized impact on my life. The way I explained it to my wife was that it's like I'd been walking around with a sheet of plywood glued to the bottom of my foot for almost 40 years.
Anyway, cool story, bro. One of the things I like best about Drawing Links is that these stories have so much breathing room. They're dreamy in the literal sense, and little bits and pieces of them keep recombining in my memory. They always make me think of something else, which is how I got off on this self-pitying tangent in the first place.
I love this one, Edith! You always find the most interesting things to link to, that connect to the story in the comic. Going to check out "Run For Your Life" now...