Couleurs

Airport Run

Hot, delicious May afternoon air, muggy and reflective, baked off the runway as I made a turn on the long, curving track of asphalt next to the airport, late day runs are always the best, myself, alone with my rhythm on the pavement and the raucous green weeds in the ditches, neat hedgerows and secret houses, speeding pickups and darting birds my only company. Just when I though for once life had distilled into something manageable, I rounded the blind spot under tall White Pines and there you were, smiling, running towards me, I suppose I knew you were going for a run as well, we live together, work together, eat together, for the moment at least, or perhaps that was just my memory of the future. Now that I recall a bit, we set off together, you laughed when I said I'd wait for you, go at your pace, I smiled and took off at a fast enough clip to escape society, 40 minutes ago seems like decades, when your caught up in a run. So we passed each other now, you laughed and gave me a swift smack on the butt as we crossed path's, I stiffened a bit with happiness and surprise, I don't love you, but I like you, I wanted to so much to be friends, like spring wants to be summer, but, like summer wants to be fall, things change without reason nor warning, and I'll probably never see you again.

We shared a warmth of friendship without pretense, without expectations, without awkwardness, that I long for so much these days. Last I heard your roaming the jungles of Central America, sounds like a made up half dream for a suburban Connecticut girl, but you did it, and god dammit if I'm not a little bit jealous. I'm tired of school, tired of restraining my true craziness to fit this urban wilderness, I want to run out to the airport again with no watch or destination; remember when we ran barefoot out to the point, stripped down naked and slipped on slick green seaweed into the gaping gray maw of the sea? The water was fucking freezing and I wish I could feel that alive every day, eat when I'm hungry, sleep when I'm, tired, run when I'm energetic, swim when I'm uncertain. Uncertain about the past, the present and the future, I miss the farm, planting something with my hands and being damn tired enough at the end of the day. my hands too calloused and rough to caress the problems of the world.

Out there on 485 acres of Maine coastline, I felt like those aboriginals you read about in middle school in National Geographic who have no other words to describe themselves with expect as "the people", you know, I feel so blessed, but also so hollow, I'm tired of being optimistic about mediocrity, enthusiastic about routine, ambivalent about chaos. I want to embrace uncertainty like it's the only thing that matters, like going sailing with Jacob, laughing as we dragged the little sloop up some muddy tidal stream with the current ripping at 10 knots lout in the channel, riptide in the July afternoon sun, 5 bajillion tacks to make it back to the harbor, upwind and upcurrent, seem like much of of life these days. We let the wind steer our ambition nowhere in particular, just forward, talked about school, politics, girls, life. Your so certain, just a kid but steady and kind, I know that just by your smile.

I like giving you a hard time because I know you can kick it right back at me, I lean way out over the rails as the boat heels hard in an afternoon gust, salt spray licks the edge of my week-old stubble and sea foam whips up swirling eddies in our wake. I chide you a bit about all the girls who checked you out at our recent sailing meet at the girls camp up the coast, but I hesitate as I see your normally bulletproof confidence waver, you say your not sure your really into those girls, I want to tell you its ok, I know what that feels like. We bring the bow around on a sharp windward jive and soon we are hauling ass, flying back into the cove, the boat shudders and lurches with momentum and soon we are stumbling up the landing to the boathouse, weather-beaten sails in hand, drunk on the possibility of nothing and everything being OK in the end.