I'm having some trouble typing as my hands are still thawing. I just went running and it's damn cold outside. I hate the cold. My throat aches. My lungs burn, and every part of me cringes with unhappiness.
As I ran along Lavista tonight, I once again realized how much i hate anything below 60 degrees. I also realized that, much as I try to deny it, I hate running. Give me 80 degree weather and a 3 hour intense yoga class with a heater on any day. Not this hell.
It's boring, repetitive, painful to the joints and the only way I get through it is to distract myself with music.
Tonight, though, I could not be distracted. Curse I-pod shuffle. There is no way in hell it's truly random. Otherwise, how did it randomly present endless Johnny Cash, Wu-Tang Clan, Beck and Led Zepellin. I broke my shuffle running rule again today and moved ahead, moved ahead, next, not you, no.
Why do I do this?
I dunno. It gives me time to think? Although, I didn't do too much thinking tonight. The only topic to rise above my own whinging was the thought of a book called My Jesus Year recently published by the youngest son of my high school rabbi, Benyamin Cohen. This is not the son I dated in 8th grade. That was Ezra. Our dating consisted of peering longingly down the hall at each other and talking on the phone at night. In memory,we lasted a few months. In reality, I think it was a few weeks. Ezra ended it because his friends thought he should. I was devastated.
This, all while running painfully past Beth Jacob, the synagogue where I davened in high school. And by davening I mean I sat with my friends and talked about other people.
Benyamin's book, which I plan to read as soon as possible, interests me on many levels. First, how brave to so openly discuss his doubts and dislikes of Judaism. It's hard enough for most of us who grew up Orthodox. Is it that much more difficult when your father is a rabbi?
Myself, I've never considered for a moment turning to Christianity. Sure, I love visiting churches, adore the iconography, and enjoy the signs and symbols in literature and life. But I've got enough confusion in relation to my own religion. Why in God's name would I make my life more complicated by turning to a religion that separates me from my family?
Perhaps if I felt strongly about religion, any religion, but I don't. I have yet to figure out how and where it fits into my life. And I have no idea what it will look like when it does.
This, by the way, took approximately two minutes to flit through my head and then I was back to my running, forward, forward. Method Man again. Didn't that song come on already? More Johnny Cash. I tried to listen but the beat was too slow. I'm a creep? No thanks, not now.
Finally, I came across one song -- five minutes long -- that made me laugh and supplied just enough energy to keep me going. As I ran along that cold, car-riddled street, past Outback Steakhouse and Blockbuster, turning along the bend by Calibre Woods beyond Kroger, Pike's nursery and onto where just houses and darker streets grace the hard concrete sidewalk that breaks a runner's knees and back, I had to smile. I listened to it twice.
Ain't nothing like the suburbs, baby, to bring it all home.
So what was the song?
Posted by: Laura | November 18, 2008 at 10:06 AM