Fleet

8.3.18

I’ve had TWO dreams lately in which running was bliss.

In the first, the running quickly turned into flying – the BEST kind of dream. As soon as I wake up, I recognize the flying as actually being swimming, but without any water, including me pushing off walls and parked cars, etc. as if they were the side of a swimming pool, and then I “fly” even faster, breast-stroking madly, until I drift to a stop and have to push off something else.

Lovely.

In the second, I was running – happily – along a mountain path at night. No, I don’t know why; it was a dream – hold all your questions until transactional analysis. I realized I’d gotten off the path. With a dream-like déjà vu, I knew that if I continued, I’d be attempting to move along the side of a cliff, so I backtracked wisely until I found a road.

The road led me to a town, where rednecks menaced me. When I turned for help to the toothless tavern owner, she grinned at me and locked the door behind me. The man with no feet leered, and the original thug in the baseball cap appeared at the back door. I thought, “Man, are these guys going to be surprised when my super powers kick in.”

Wait. What was my point again?

Oh, yeah. I dreamed – TWICE – that I was really enjoying running.

Like – I was feeling the delicious cross-body stretch from up-elbow across to up-knee, from forward shoulder to forward hip, and my breathing was easy and deep, and my shoulders were down and back, and I felt like I could run forever.

Despite what those dreams evolved into, don’t you think this is a positive, hopeful sign for my future as a runner?? One day I could run as effortlessly, as fluidly, as easily as Barbara?

(New reader? Barbara is my fitness trainer at Body Dynamics in Falls Church, Virginia. She’s a gifted trainer and a contagious runner, in that she makes you want to run, too. Like an infection. Like the plague. You’re GONNA catch it, poor bastard.)

As previously noted, I’ve spent 58 years arranging my life so I do NOT have to run. To discover, at this advanced age, that MAYBE it’s not QUITE as horrible as I previously thought? That’s – well, it’s dreamy.

I can’t consciously envision myself as being fleet-footed – ever. But I can in my dreams. So it must be in the outer bounds of possible. (Still waiting for the super powers to kick in.)

Onward!