Oh, The People You'll Meet

Let me give you some background.  I started running in earnest about three years ago.  When I started running, I was a devout listener to silence.  I looked down my nose at people who listened to their iPods while running.  Running was the only peace and quiet I got in a day.  I'd be crazy to interrupt it with any kind of input. 


Then about ten months into running, while I was training for my first marathon (after hours and hours on the road by myself), I began to change my tune.  I could NO LONGER listen to the silence, or my head, or passing cars.  I needed distraction and I needed it bad.  On went the iPod, in went the earbuds, and I have never looked back.  I have listened to music, speakers, books.  Whatever.  Just anything to keep from listening to me.  


However, everything, I'm finding, is fluid in this life.  Here's proof.


Vehicle maintenance is the bane of my existence.  Being a newly single woman, I feel like I am every mechanic's second-home-in-the-mountains dream.  It would make me cry to think about the money and time I've spent at the shop in the past year.  So when the mucho expensive, relatively new brake job seemed to be coming to an untimely end....well, you can imagine.  I wasn't particularly pleased.  In a car, being able to stop is kinda important.  I carry precious cargo.  So, again, I head back the mechanic's.  


As is usual for me, while I waited for the mechanic to diagnose my problems, I headed for the closest hill.  Nothing makes time pass like physical exercise.


Music blaring in my ears, I started up.  Since I'm training for a marathon, I figured instead of hiking, I'd just run it.  I am woman, hear me roar.  Umm, yeah, right.  Not even.  Half way up, after stopping several times to gasp for breath, leg muscles screaming out in sheer exhaustion, I gave up.  I continued my hike to the top at a leisurely pace and reassured myself that I would jog down.  I knew I could do at least that much.


Twenty minutes later, cut to the top.  While I'm all alone up there, I crank up the music (Basic Space by The xx -- thanks, C) 

and get down to doing a little dancing.  Just because I can.


My phone rings.  It's the mechanic.  They can fix my brakes.  For free.  It'll be an hour.  It felt like some sort of small victory, but I didn't at all feel victorious.  I sit down and take it all in.

Sun shining down.  Views were incredible. 

I think about writing -- a blog post, that long overdue e-mail, something.  Just then, out of the bushes comes a sweet looking soul.  Dirty blond hair piled on top of his head.  Hiking pack full of water and snacks.  Vibram Five-Fingers.  And a bag from Whole Foods full of...something.  


His entire face lit up when he saw me.  And to tell you the truth, I think my face lit up, too.  It was like seeing a friend, even though we'd never met. 


I pull out one earbud, leave my music on.  "Hi,"I said.  And he replied, "Oh, hi," with a sigh at the end, like he'd been planning on seeing me there all along.


Now I'm not cavalier.  I do have common sense.  I'm aware that I'm a woman hiking solo on a hill (where there's been a recent unsolved homicide) and that I'm in the company of a perfect stranger, but I had no sense of danger or fright.  He was just there and so was I.  It seemed pre-ordained and surprising all at the same time.


I sensed he had something to say, and he didn't disappoint.


As I listened, I pulled out my other earbud and shut off my iPod.


I learned that he and his family "were just passing through," that he was from Oregon, headed to warmer climates, with sun.  I learned he was "car camping," had a wife and a step-daughter.  And then he leveled me...


"I'm just here to slack line," he said, holding up his Whole Foods bag, showing me it was full of his gear.


"What?" I replied.


"Slack line.  It's like tightrope walking, but on a slack line.  Maybe you've seen people doing it?"


"Oh, yeah.  At the park.  Looks fun."


"I came here yesterday," he explained.  "I set up my line between two rocks on the other side of the hill there.  I jumped on my line, and all the sudden felt so afraid.  It was so intense.  It was full-body fear.  I couldn't explain it."


"Heights?" I asked.


"No, not heights.  It was a deep, deep fear."  He paused.  "I came back today to put up my line, sit on it, and meditate.  I need to know what that was all about.  I came here to sit in the fear."


"Oh, really," I heard my head reply.  "That's ironic.  I came here to outrun mine."  I'm not sure where the words came from.  They just appeared without my intellectual input.  Perhaps it was my inner wisdom?  Perhaps I was just hearing voices? 


We talked for a while more.  I don't remember much.  I know I felt the itch to leave.  Made an excuse that I had to go get my kids.  As I turned to leave, he called out to me.  I turned back and saw him standing there, with his clenched fist over his heart.  "I feel called to say something to you.  I'm not sure why."  He took a breath and continued, "I can see you're open-hearted.  I know you're looking for something.  You are finding your beloved.  It's here.  It's being uncovered."


I'm being stripped down to my essence...


I turned back around and started running down the hill.  My head started to dissect the conversation.  Fear.  What is it that I'm afraid of?  Being alone.  Why?  Loneliness.  Why?  Silence.  What if I sat in my fear?  What if I made friends with it rather than ran from it?  Where would the slack line of my fear be?  What if fear wasn't fear, but just a message about something else altogether?  What would my fear tell me about me?  It went on and on an on.  Deeper and deeper, I looked inside.  The fear behind the fears behind the fears.


And then it happened.  I found myself back down the hill, back downtown, standing at the shop.  No music.  No earbuds.  No iPod.  Silence.  I found myself perched on the slack line of my fear.  And I wasn't afraid at all.