Music, God’s Anaesthetic

Saturday, well into a 32 km run,  listening to the body, watching the mind.  The tired heaviness below the waist is not unexpected,  but inside is another story. Focussing on feeling beat up and weak,  ruminating about body functions that might or might not have to be taken care of on the run. 

THIS is what is so easy to forget about long runs - the mind games.  

Two hours in,  when the first level mind tricks are gone,  the easy points of motivation used up, the clock torments.  Time is naked pain. How in fuck’s name am I supposed to keep running when the legs are tired and the gut is not happy and there's still 2 hours to go and I look at the watch again and good mother of god, it's only been two minutes

It’s the flickering candle of will power that keeps it going at this point.  The salt is drying white streaks on my face, weak lightning ghosting up my legs looking for sugar,  the clock keeps bitch slapping me and then

Thunder Road comes over the earpods.  Bruce.

Deep red rose blooming in my heart center and thorning up in terrible beauty, spearing the emotional centers and hidden chakras and brilliant, fecund energy boils down into my legs and up into my head and it’s all summarized by

The tears that well

THEIR genesis is that dark and secret garden below the heart center that stores the parcels, some half opened, many dark and yellowed with age and as the thorns break open they throw surprises like a film-noire jack in the box

And I cry

And I'm amazed at the privateness and openness of the moment. Interesting too, the clock was forgotten - more like it just ceased to be in those few minutes. Music, god's anaesthetic, powerful stuff. Took the pain away, and washed me with the blood of my own crucifixions - some imagined, some real - all real, as the imagined has its truth as well.