I’ve been
running for approximately twenty-six years. Not continually, but regularly and wherever I seem to find
myself. Along the foreshores of
Sydney, on the dried crusted sands of outback Australia, through a grey, dank
park south of London, along the frozen Hudson River in New York. Wherever I’ve lived I’ve run. It’s very cathartic for me. Without it I’d likely be medicated for
anxiety. At the very least I’d be
rather difficult to live with. It also fits my budget…it’s free. All I do is throw on a pair of old
runners, fall out the back door and go for a trot.
That’s the easy
part. It’s getting back again that
I find difficult, for I perpetuate the feminine stereotype of having utterly
appalling navigational skills.
Absolutely no sense of direction and a complete inability to read
maps. It shames my brothers, but
if forced to use a map, I flip it to match any turns I make and therefore
embraced that navigational masterpiece, the GPS, with more joy than I did my
husband on our wedding night. The
points on a compass mean nothing to me and unless I waited until the sun set, I
would never know where west is. I’m a navigational black hole. Any relevant information enters my
brain and if it comes out at all it’s warped. Left seems right, up is down, and as for roundabouts,
circling them until you’re dizzy is better than getting on a freeway you can’t
escape and traveling for miles suspecting, correctly, that you’re going in the
wrong direction.
I think my
father thought he could fix the problem by enrolling the four of us in an
orienteering course when we were young.
We were put in pairs, given a compass and a map, and a series of targets
to find somewhere in the bush. The
first team back won. I was always
put with a family friend who (if he’d been so inclined) could likely have
represented Australia in the middle distance running events. Off he would dash, disappearing amongst
the gum trees and buggar following the map, my sole objective was to keep up
with him and not spend the day lost in the wilderness.
New York spoiled
me; its convenient grid meant that even when I was lost, I was still only one
block in the wrong direction. I’d
forgotten how much that hid my disability when I was briefly back in Australia
and working in Darwin, Northern Territory. On my first night there, I stayed with my new boss and her
husband and headed out for a jog.
Two and a half hours later, heels bleeding, mouth as dry as a popcorn
fart, they found me pounding the pavement clear on the other side of town.
In those days I
was a fashion workout puritan; old t-shirts with no labels, my midriff securely
covered, shorts from my soccer days and definitely no music device. I’ve graduated now - audibly anyway -
and strap an ipod to my arm. An
excellent device that detracts those pesky talky-trotters from striking up a
conversation with me when I cross their path. It is an instrument I wish I’d had as a little girl when my
father would drag me from bed for an early morning run. In my entire running career I’ve never
met a runner like Phil. He doesn’t
seem to find breathing a necessity thereby allowing him to run and talk at the
same time. “So Nome,” he’ll say,
half way up a hill, “what do you think is the meaning of life?”
These days I
sprint along the edge of the Pacific, the Santa Monica Pier in the distance,
dodging seagulls, my feet pounding in time to the rhythm of the Venice drum
circle, the theme from Chariots of Fire running
through my head. Usually I am
accompanied by a pod of dolphins playing in the waves where the lifeguards are
performing one of their many surf rescues. I’m not sure why there are so many, though it may have
something to do with the large number of people swimming fully clothed, which
can’t help too much with their buoyancy.
Sometimes I skip
the beach, bike ride to a steep set of stairs and run up and down them until my
legs shake so badly I can barely ride home again. It may seem like an odd thing to do, but I am never alone. The stairs are always crowded with hundreds
of sweating, panting, puffing Santa Monicans all working for the perfect
body.
Up and down the
steps I pound, head down and eyes on the stairs, which is great for avoiding an
embarrassing trip, but gives me no time to prepare for coming face to face – or
face to bum as the case may be – with the person in front.
Usually it’s a
woman in Lycra pants and matching sports bra because here, a display of midriff
is compulsory, regardless of its state.
The owner of said midriff may have just given birth to octuplets or
placed first in a hamburger eating competition, but still their jiggling
abdomens are revealed, shuddering like bacon on a factory convey belt.
And if it’s not
the jigglers I run into, it’s the man with the weights, always dressed in a black
fleece tracksuit and covered in a weight jacket. The pungent odour of man-sweat trapped between metal and a
synthetic fibre wafts behind him like a skunk under threat. Though I do occasionally wonder if I’m
not much better. My typical
morning involves getting dressed into the pajamas I didn’t wear to bed, (I find
them restrictive for sleeping, but perfect for writing) writing for a few
hours, then getting out in the sunshine for a bit of exercise. Rationalising that there’s no point
showering before a workout, or putting deodorant on either since I’ll only
sweat it off so I may as well save the money, I head for the stairs as natural
as nature intended. The saying
‘ladies don’t sweat, they perspire’ does not apply to me and it has occurred to
me that my natural pheromones may, in fact, be offensive to others.
Now, while the
stairs are being pounded by those with the extra pounds, they’re more likely to
be lightly tapped by rawboned women, their glossy manes bouncing around their
doctor-designed faces, their chopstick legs desperately balancing the weight of
their surgically enhanced chests so they don’t topple forwards and land at the
bottom of the stairs in a tiny bundle of plastic, collagen and spandex.
LA is the kind
of town where if you didn’t have an eating disorder when you got here, you’ll
quickly acquire one. They’re
obligatory. Like a valley accent,
or air pollution, or a passive-aggressive attitude. Here, pre-schoolers do yoga and ladies carry their complexes
in their designer handbag. Recently I overheard a woman ask her friend how she stayed so
thin. “I haven’t eaten anything
that tastes good in years,” the friend replied.
I’ve only been
here eight months and already I’ve developed the disturbing habit of reaching
under my shirt and feeling my belly pooch every time I take a sip of tea with
sugar in it or - heaven forbid - eat the bread my sandwich comes with. Sometimes when I’m running the stairs I
grab at it, as if I might be able to feel the fat dissolve with every step I
climb.
So here we are,
the fatties, the clones and me, all vying for space on the wooden stairs. And just like I can sniff the weight
man, I can also sniff the clones’ disdain when they glance at my outfit, my
baseball cap hiding my unbrushed hair, the sun cream running milkily down my
arms.
“What’s the
time?” Clone One asks Clone Two, pointedly ignoring the watch on my wrist. After taking her earphone out of one
ear and telling the person on her iPhone to “hang on a minute,” Clone Two looks
at Clone One and says; “twelve thirty.”
(No self respecting Hollywood-wannabe exercises before noon. Probably because their waitressing
shift didn’t finish until three and they also need the morning to blow dry
their freshly washed hair). But
it’s not really the time Clone One cares about. What she’s really saying is; “how did you convince your
surgeon to do your breasts so big?
I tried, but mine refused.
I knew I should have spent the extra money for the surgeon on that
reality show, all my friends did and he did exactly as they asked.”
One of my
greatest runs was back in New York on the night of ‘blackout 2003’ (as the
commemorative t-shirts said). At
first New Yorkers panicked (it seemed a little too much like that fateful
September date) but after it was ascertained – and blamed on Canada – that it
was just a huge power failure, it was a very pleasant evening indeed. Spontaneous street parties erupted,
stores gave away melting ice creams and candles were shared as people gathered
together on the brownstone steps.
At dusk, not a single light but the fireflies in the trees and the sun
setting over the west side apartments, I strode around the Jackie Onassis
Resevoir and thought of Phil.
What was the meaning of life? Was it this? A mad-paced city forced to stop and smell the dog pee
evaporating from its sidewalks? To
recognise that for all their differences, the inhabitants could still be united
by a single blown fuse. Or did the
clones have it right? Was the
meaning of life competitive uniformity?
Should we abandon individuality and strive instead for homogenous
perfection?
I decided to ask
Clone Number Two…if only I could work out which one she was.
