RUN!

Most mornings, I lie in bed, the sun slanting through the blinds and muster the will to not so much get up, because I'm not depressed and actually love the morning, but, rather rise and go, now -- move my body, get up and go, you have to exercise, you have to start, again. It's an irritating dialogue that I have each morning with my deep heart's core, and nearly always, the indefatigable one is the voice that takes its cue from the ticking clock, the smell of coffee, the arthritic big toe, and I don't get up and go. 

So.

I downloaded an app on my Android (who knew I'd be typing sentences like these when I learned to type in the ninth grade from Senor Martinez, my pinky poised delicately over the p on the black, manual typewriter, waiting for his soft-inflected Spanish p,f,p,f,p,f,p,p,f,p) that is going to coach me toward a 5K. I'll type that again, my fingers flying: I downloaded an app on my Android that is going to coach me toward a 5K. A nice woman named Alison starts me off with a warm-up walk of about three minutes and then suddenly urges me to RUNNN! and I pick up my feet and my thighs, thighs that haven't lifted into the perpendicular in quite some time, and I ru -- well -- shuffle. I do this for about thirty seconds or so until Alison mercifully tells me to WALK! and I walk until she pipes in, again to RUNNNN! and her voice is lilting, she is encouraging me to RUN! as if there were a deep, green Irish meadow in front of me, the great Yeats beckoning me to the Lake Isle of Innisfree, we will arise and go there, the poet says, so I lift my feet, my thighs, and ru -- well -- shuffle until the poet is blurry and Alison tells me to WALK, and I do. I walk, my face on fire, sweat running into my eyes, perhaps they're tears of relief, really, and right now the walks are much longer than the runs, and I'm doing it, I'm going to do it.

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning, to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day,
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

William Butler Yeats (1864-1939)