Run & Paint

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

The starkness of a thing. . . doppler effect of mileage.

Running carolina beach state park with sugarloaf dune draped in saint-white sand and the new silk of spiders, the flitter-rustle of finches and the muffled footfalls of pineneedled trails at an unpushed pace of about nine minutes, easy & pleasant movement in the Spring sun while vicious cross-currents of the cape fear push against coast in quickspill sapphires and salt-foam. . . glassy black brine and the carpet of jade moss gives rise to dwarfed crags with thick fans of woody moss, the wicked arms of live oaks, the vertical launches of pine and long-leaf. . . the sum of the experience moves beyond roots and rocks, dredging sand, moves beyond the seven miles to the 31 miles in four days on similar terrain, and I am reminded of the difficulty of the goal and anxiety builds like doppler effect as the ultramarathon approaches, getting louder and overwhelming and then a pulse becomes a constant roar abruptly diminishing and dropping to a faint bass-pulse somewhere far away. . . but the run is sound, my fitness remains okay through gum surgery four weeks ago followed by intestinal poisoning, and a nine minute pace feels perpetual and pleasant for the moment. spoon's “everything hits at once” cycles with current image-ideas and the landscape of carolina beach puts me head-on into pollock's blue poles and I pause into the painting, relayer it as it was painted, seeing pollock's angst pouring paint on and throwing those rough-planed boards across the flat-laid canvas with barely a touch of rabbit skin glue and just starting in, thrusting against the deep pthalo blue house paint like a jazz artist would a new melody suddenly clear, seeing the rhythm and starting to jam, calligraphy in air above the canvas duck, earth and hay and stirsticks and fingers and bottle caps all building into a cohesive surface. . . blue poles, a fine image to get entangled in thoughts of leg-labors kicking the final kilometer, enjoying new spring growth & glad to be part of the fantastic world, glad to be running, grateful.