At Ease

Navigational Art By Colleen Yorke, © 2015.

Why do we run? For the adrenaline and the rush of movement? For a quick fix of endorphins? We all have our reasons why we lace up our sneakers and hit the roads. About two years ago, I did not think I could even run 4 miles. A year later, some 1,900 miles down the road, and proud owner of a marathon finisher medal, running has become essential. Running is not slogging through the miles (although I do track every mile), or trying to sweat out last night’s good times, it is so much more than that. I run with a group, runners who I now call my friends. Friendships come in different shapes and sizes, from wiry, pale bookworms to the wind-burned jocks. They see me sweaty and having a beer with them not showered, and presumably they like me anyway. 

No lull in the conversations, except those enforced by downtown's steepest of the hills (Grand Avenue!) - up, as we struggle for breath, and down, as we concentrate on keeping our skies underneath us. What is discussed on a run stays on a run. These are the friends who give us a hand and an ear, who help us up the pavement when we do fall, and stick by us as we outrun havoc, even if we end up with a few tear stains on our running shoes. And I certainly know from personal experience, it is possible to cry and run at the same time, but at least I am running. Whatever our initial reason was we took up running, we come to discover we feel at ease, quite simply, we are happier, when we run.

Shadow Lives

Navigational Art and Directions By Colleen Yorke, © 2017.

Enter any bookstore, and we find shelves laden with self-help books and guides for leading meaningful, happy lives. Row after row, experts claim to have found the key to bliss and fulfillment. Last Friday, the duo that calls themselves "Minimalists" pitched their lifestyle concept for "lasting happiness": By clearing the clutter from life’s path, Ryan and Joshua argue we can pursue purpose-driven lives. 

"What Minimalism is really all about is reassessment of your priorities so that you can strip away the excess stuff – the possessions and ideas and relationships and activities – that don’t bring value to your life."

While their proposal is an intriguing one, I am not entirely convinced. Maybe I do only need "55 essential things", but reducing my living space to an empty room with white walls and no furniture for example, or discarding photographs because "they are not real memories" seems too simple a solution. A "filled" space and photographs capture the essence of a lived life. It is what remains, and it is what we share. "Real freedom", as Joshua puts it, that "comes from ridding ourselves from the past" to me seems like "just another word for nothing to lose". The past shaped who we are today. Stripping away and severing ties to the past in my opinion is similar to being a person without a shadow. And for some our shadow represents the true spirit of life. Writers such as Hemingway and painters such as Van Gogh in their lifelong struggle against emotional shocks, scars and darkness, created some of the most beautifully and powerfully told stories of our time. Even Disney's Peter Pan, the boy who never wanted to grow up, is not "a whole person" without his shadow. 

Self-Portrait, 2014.

When I run, I am accompanied by my tall shadow on the ground mirroring my footsteps. Life is a balance between the ying and yang, the light and the dark. In coexistence they add value to the other. Priorities change. It is by "having something to lose" that we add purpose to our lives. It is our scars that set us apart from everyone else. And often ideas and relationships seem rather heavy to carry and perhaps even of no value at all.  Only later we find out how much we have grown and learned. Our baggage becomes a toolbox to "do better next time".

"It is, after all, the dab of grit that seeps into an oyster's shell that makes the pearl" — Stephen King