run

This is Going to be Good

/ Sloan / Leave a comment

I’ve always been good at procrastinating. Shit just gets done easier when there’s A LOT to do and a little time. When I have two jobs, class, volunteer responsibilities, and a training plan to follow I am happier, healthier, in better shape. I’m generally amazed at what I can accomplish. When I have three weeks to ‘get everything done’ nothing gets’ done.

            I sit here on a Saturday afternoon putzing around not cleaning, not packing, not getting ready to once again move my life. D-day is tomorrow and my suitcase of clothes and bag of shoes sit in ruins around my mother’s spare bedroom. After this post, I swear I’ll start the laundry and begin rolling my clothes to make them all fit as much as I’d rather kick back and not, I will, I must.

 

Back to Maryland. Thank god. Once there I won’t get crazy looks when I get carded at the bar and whip out my random Maryland driver’s license.  I’ll live near a lake, near the mountains and have work that will keep me busy and active, and hopefully another job that will keep me on my feet and social. I’ll play in the woods, paddle around the lake and explore the productive side of me that I have missed for way too long.

            Tomorrow I say goodbye to the flat lands of the mid-west, goodbye to the lake that stretches for miles and goodbye to my friends and family that have supported me. I’m excited and nervous and ready to embark on this new journey. I’m excited to say hello to the mountains, make new friends and reconnect with some old ones. This is good. This is going to be really good.

What a stranged shaped state

What a stranged shaped state

**More on where, why, and what next week. NOT back to Baltimore, I’ll give ya that much!***

Learning to Remember

/ Sloan / 1 Comment

Waking up early is in my blood. Struggling to put my already damp sports bra on to my already sweaty body I remind myself where I am: Cat Ba Island. Skipping down the 6 flights of stairs I curse the broken elevator. Walk to the street and pick up the pace.

 

The streets are busy with locals. Motorbikes zoom to drop off kids at school, men at work and women selling coffee, I run. Ignoring the calls for a taxi or motorbike ride I run. To the beach, to the ridge where I am alone with my islands. My islands rest and wait and absorb the shock of the waves that lap them from the great sea. I’m alone as I stretch my tired muscles, as I climb the stairs I had just descended and as I round the corner and sit with a small Vietnamese woman who tells me hot coffee is just 10,000 dong. I sip my twenty-five cent brew and remind myself again and again.

Define ‘Wilderness’

/ Sloan / 1 Comment

When I left the Bangkok hostel, turned left down an alley and right onto the main road. I ducked under the BTS, Chong Nassi station, hopping up curbs and around food carts. I dodged Thais on their way to work; I was on my toes nimbly able to move quickly in any direction. Horns honked and motorbikes passed me as I hugged the side of the street in order to avoid pedestrians and stray dogs. Concrete jungle was never such a clear term as it was on my run to Lumpini Park through the city of Bangkok.

            Arriving at one of the many entrances to the park I was quickly swooped to the right in order to flow with traffic. Pedestrian and bicyletrian traffic has a schedule of directionality around the lake within the gates—that day it was right. Running faster than some, I passed cautiously, I was unsure of the community ‘norm’ here. On the trail I’m alone and just follow the path, in this ‘jungle’ I was out of my comfort zone and was forced to look around and try to integrate myself into the foreign culture.

            Birds manifested in groups of women flapping colorful fans. I imagined the men with swords practicing some sort of slow, methodical chorography as dragons. The deer I often see leaping through the trails of Oregon were long, lean women doing sun salutations to the 7am sun. Bears were transformed into heavy men sweating in the already hot day running the same course as me. Instead of the wind rustling the branches of trees I heard music blasted from speakers high up on lampposts.

 

I was in the wilderness—just not the kind I’m used to.