Curving

May 4, 2020

Greetings from the crooked place,

I spend many hours on roads that cut the farmland into perfect grids.  A few miles from where I sit the world changes from neat neighborhoods into gently rolling fields.  In some places I can see a couple miles ahead, the land is so flat and the road so straight.  The farmers make the most of the shape there, tilling and planting in regimented rows.  In a few months the corn and beans will stand in near perfect columns, parallel lines to parallel lines.

Part of me enjoys this symmetry.  There are times that I like knowing the predictable nature of my environment.  The land is segmented into one mile squares, so running between the fields has a satisfying regularity.  Hit the next intersection, five miles, then six miles.  Run past four more farms split by narrow roads, eight, ten, make a ninety degree turn, eleven, twelve. 

I know the shape of the roads well enough to run them in the dark, led by moonspell, almost by feel, the regularity of the roads printed in my muscle memory.

There is this other thing that calls to me though.  Yesterday I ran into the woods, reminded of what trail runners tell me, that it is a different kind of experience, one that demands you pay attention to every step.  There is no autopilot here, you must be present, the moment insists upon you seeing it.

Many years ago I read a book about how to create a Japanese garden.  I have forgotten most of it except for this one aspect.  The author spoke about how as you move through the garden, each step reveals a different view, new shapes, a new experience.  There are straight lines but only to give contrast to the other shapes.

It is what nature provides without direction from us.  I ran along the river, the path weaving between trees, echoing the shape of the water nearby.  Across the bridge and up onto a narrow dirt path, first tamped down by deer, meandering around pine and maple, skirting the ragged edge of the cliff sloping down to the river.

Not for the first time, I noticed the shape of the path, how it bent and wandered, led me from one frame of beauty to the next.  When I reached the top of the bluff I stopped and looked down at the river, saw its graceful shape, wending among rocks, making room for the forest, then washing a wider place for the heron to stand.  It formed a nearly sensual shape, carving the edge of the earth into an undulating exploration.

I stood there in the morning sun, a little in awe of what I had discovered again.  I could feel my heart pulsing in me, an excitement beyond the demands of my run.

I thought about it on the way back, how the most interesting people I know are those whose lives have not always followed the straight and narrow.  The richest conversations were not formatted discussions but those that free flowed, took turns, arced into new directions, added small diversions.  Revealed fresh things about the people present.

The most memorable days held surprises, variety, switchbacks.  My favorite books bent my imagination, provided magic and whimsy and the most impractical turns for laughter or love.  The words had order, the letters were aligned, but the plot curved, wound around the lives of the people it held.  The words gave shape to the story, a shape that invited me to want more.

In the same way, the most important events that come our way, we say ‘shaped our lives’.

Yes, it is so satisfying to have the point A to point B experiences.  Plan this, go there, do that, measure the result.  Check. Check. Check.  But there is already so much of that in our lives it is only sensible to seek the variety and surprise that nature creates without an engineer’s help.

Here is a truth I always have felt.  When I see the road make a bend, or disappear over a rise, I am drawn to it.  I want to know where it goes, where it will take me.  I am curious to know what the next shape it will take.

The design of the Japanese garden is to give the visitor a sense of peace.  It introduces graceful, softened lines, small distinctions to cause you to pause to see, to enjoy the variety, the beauty.  As I wove through the woods, seeing each place I would step, each root’s detail, the small slope, the divots and holes, and each tree the path partnered with, I lost the sense of running, and gained the pleasure of being there. 

At the bluff, looking back down at the shape of the path I had run, I saw the art of it.  Above me, the blue dome, stippled with strands of white.  This beauty, this random, carefree, wandering beauty, is what waits in every bend of the path before us.  Sometimes the curve in the road slows us down enough to see it.

Hope this finds you bending the line,

David

Copyright © 2020 David Smith