Memory Laces: Everyone runs for a reason; I am running towards understanding mine.

 

I feel a pulse in my feet, as I tighten the green laces of my running shoes. The ritual of strongly strapping up the mesh around each foot is doubling my resolution to endure whatever that run will bring. I finally stand, balancing from one side to another, mentally checking all the signals from my body. I fake some running movements and feel my soles, as they transform into cadence machines, which will grip the asphalt and will propel me, one step after another, around the city, until I find myself standing all wet, precisely in the same spot, one hour later, with imperceptibly less rubber on my soles.

I step outside, in the sun; the early May wind pinches my skin, taking me by surprise. I frown: you’re going to harass me today, aren’t you… you’ll press against my stride when I am pushing myself uphill …

The wind forgets about me, busy with its inspection through the silent streets. My neighborhood is full of motionless cars, all useless in this curfew pandemic Sunday. This precinct was built in the ’60s and 70s, following the soviet communist architecture. Half a century later, after the capitalist freedom allowing for overconsumption and chaotic new buildings, after the dilution of community care for own surroundings, I live in a place where history displays failures of both systems.

I start running, and I imagine I am traveling back in time; if I focus a little bit, I can erase all these new car models out of the picture, I can take out all these new random buildings that were crammed in front of the existing apartment buildings by greedy businessmen, who bought our city gardens and turned them into residential projects, with no parking lots. I can imagine sidewalks that are not blocked by carelessly parked cars.

From its shadow, the past comes forward, and I remember…

As a child, my favorite thing after classes was to stroll around, aimlessly. My 10-minute walk back home would take me in the end about two hours: I would stop to watch the bees inside the long purple flowers of the hedges, along the narrow alleys of the school block. I would seal their petals with magician-like movements and capture them inside, just to hear their buzz inside the flower.

I would stop under dwarf mulberry trees full of crop and eat with urge the juicy fruits until my fingers, lips and tongue were as purple as stained by sepia ink.

I would hop into the bus, and instead of hopping off at the next stop, where we lived, I would go full circle around the city, until I would finally arrive at my station. That was my favorite thing to do! Just staring out the window, hearing the puffs of increased pressure in the pistons, as the doors would open with a bang, letting in the petrol smell from the outside. And then, there was this portion of the road, almost a kilometer long, downhill, were the trolleybus would get speed, hissing and whizzing, like a giant beast, pushing me against the window, and then bouncing me off the seat, as we flew over the undulated asphalt. I noticed that the creature hidden inside the trolleybus was showing off how balky it really was only when there was just a handful of passengers. I knew about its tricks, but I was watching how it liked to surprise those who were not paying attention, making them unbalance and lose grip. I thought the beast was actually bored with going around in circles, and that it was giving that good scare to those newcomers, just to have fun!

I am running uphill, and I was right, the wind does push me back, making my effort harder. I realize that I am going up the road where, as a child, I would have fun, downhill, with the beast from the trolleybus… I am an adult now, the world has changed, and I have changed: I find myself going uphill, and I am not even sure it is by choice.

Yet, I realize I am still touring around the city by myself, chasing the shadows of my past. That peace of mind, that carelessness, that trust that nothing can go wrong, that good things are hanging from the trees, that there is time, nowhere to rush, just to explore … I guess this is what I am looking for. Somehow, each of my runs through the city is about me hoping to connect with that spot in space and time, where the world was safe and friendly.