My Playground

We’ve been doing it since we were kids. Like that time in the seventh grade, for example, when our habitual tendencies dictated that we should sit in the exact same spot even though assigned seating was no longer in effect. The same could be said for all our idiosyncratic behaviors and, in particular, those which have metamorphosed into ritualized performances. Runners, themselves, are not only creatures of habit by nature’s design but incredibly methodical by choice and distinction. Still not convinced? Chances are that your last run took place on a familiar course, maybe even one that you’ve been training on for years on end and can describe like the palm of your hand. It’s certainly not unreasonable to conclude that our attachment to these places suggest an affinity far beyond the level of mere acquaintance. That’s because location, my friends, is everything in a sport where the courses we choose to carry out our greatest passion become as much a part of ourselves as the act of running itself.

There are those who would say that such preferences are governed by practical considerations such as convenience, familiarity, and a feeling of enhanced security. To understand the complete dynamics of a single run, however, one must go beyond simple logistics and probe more deeply into the realm of the phenomenal. You see, no good thing can properly exist within a vacuum. If running entailed nothing more than synchronic movements, rhythmic heartbeats, and a smooth cadence then it would cease to function as a vitalizing force in all our lives. Even our most sacred acts depend most intimately on their connection to contextual surroundings. Similarly, the trails a runner treads can be said to serve as private sanctuaries – timeless in their scope, beautiful in their aesthetic, and personal in their ontology. Each new outing represents a reenactment of previous trials with the possibility always existing that on any given day we may surpass our greatest efforts yet to date. In so doing, we pound the course into submission and assert our mastery over it by continually returning to the place that we’ve sought out on innumerable occasions beforehand. Over time, we develop a silent kinship with the streets we call our tromping grounds and a sense of ownership replaces that estranged air we felt so long ago in the days preceding our joyful betrothal. Metaphorically speaking, a trust is forged on the basis of where we’ve been, where we’re going, and where we hope to be someday.

I don’t know where your magical place lies – your field of dreams, your playground, your second star to the right and straight on till morning. For me, it’s the only road I’ve ever known and not for lack of experiencing a vast array but precisely because after having travailed so many others, I realize that it’s here, and nowhere else, that I belong – a city sleeping on this, my boulevard of open dreams. Eons from now after having left this world behind for a better one, I’m sure, I would like to say in the immortal words of Robert Frost himself: “ Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and I took the one most traveled by. And that has made all the difference.”