Mobilis in Mobili

To fill the gaps these days, with what Williams said was 'to find in motion what was lost in space', I have started running.  I can't say that I am very good at it yet, but I do have the proper gear, a good pair of running shoes, and a wrist wallet to hold my keys (emblazoned with the Austrian Airlines logo, from a flying friend).  I know that I should run on the balls of my feet and not my heels, I know that the grass is better than the sidewalk - but that I prefer the sidewalk.  The funny thing is that everyone seems to be doing it now that the gyms are all closed.  Or maybe it's just me, maybe I am seeing things more closely that I never noticed before.  I have started to see the same people.  I have been bitten by a dog.  I have run in the rain and the snow.

I was warned by a friend that running is not like lifting weights, that cardio is a whole different kind of physical exertion, and he was right.  Regardless, I have made it my own.  I am not one of those plodders that tax themselves slowly with long distance.  I run around the park closest to our house.  It is a giant rectangle and one of the few parks left in the city with a pair of diagonal allées, mapped out when the park itself dominated a much more comfortably smaller Toronto.  I have chopped up my run into sections, three times the four panels that make up the rectangle, with short rests at each corner.  All in all, about two and half kilometres. I am not overly speedy, but as my old high school geography teacher once said when I saw him walking briskly, "It's better if you push it".  So I push it, I keep a steady pace.

I am noticing a lot more police cruisers circling the block and turning into those allées I mentioned, moving slowly like metal grey koi in a mirrored pond.  I see groups of yellow-jacketed constables.  They match the forsythia that, with the blue bells, are the first blooms to appear up here in the spring.

Last week as I approached the south east corner and my second break in the rectangle, I found myself in the middle of a medical drama.  There was an ambulance and paramedics attending to a homeless man who was flat on his back on the interlocking stones.  He had a large bump on the left side of his forehead.  When I was a kid I wondered if the drunks that I would see with black eyes got them in fights, but then later I understood the meaning of the term 'falling down drunk'.  Less romantic than fisticuffs in my 8-year-old head.

A few days ago I was again at the south east corner of my run, standing around and catching my breath.  Across the street I saw a tall dishevelled blond walking somewhat unsteadily on her clear and towering lucite heels.  She clomped across the street like an old mare, heading straight for me.  Eyebrows shaved clean, but not drawn in.  This then, is 'Dollar Bill' as I had been told.  She has been around for years and is lately a bit worse-for-wear.  "Excuse me, sir", she said plaintively and with absolute utter sweetness, "Would you like a blow job?  There is a spot I know around the corner."  Still slightly winded, I laughed as I bent over with my legs spread, arms akimbo.  The woman has absolutely no guile.  It was as if she were inviting me for tea.  "No thank you", I said with as much gentlemanly zest as I could muster, then I turned .. and ran.