Fall to your knees...

Sometimes I run really fast, just to pretend I’m running for my life. Make my heart pump, lungs heave and muscles explode. Take the soundtrack of my life up a notch; embrace the necessity of the moment.

The clouds roar overhead and I inhale the first breath of winter. They are white ships speeding along in a blue sky, heralding the end of the autumn calm, driven away by a ferocious whirlwind. Summer is heavy and hot with short spells of relief, winter blasts into your core, now light and cool, now brutal and chilling. The water swells so high in the river it swallows the jetty up, so that if you walked along it you’d look like Jesus, or Michael Jackson. The wind swirls around me, sneaks across the small of my back and into my holey shoe. I get lost in a tornado of fallen leaves. The trees have been brought across the seas to mark the seasons for us. They swing and sway and shed summer slow and steady. We think of mourning, death, tears. But when the wind shakes the bark, twigs, leaves, even branches down, it’s making way for something new. Winter descends upon the south and the trees settle down to their deep slumber. Our own trees do not change; they transcend the seasons, their sense of time eternal, broken only by times of drought.

I’m a winter baby, born amongst snow and screams and goofy 80’s hair. Almost 21 years later and a continent away I listen to winter blues and float, tucked up in the corner of a chilly cafe, face pressed to the cold window. Students stride in, hidden away in cosy winter coats, wielding broken umbrellas, raindrops falling from their hair. I am here because the sperm-that-could met an egg with a vision. I don’t remember this stage of my development. I don’t remember the nappies, tears or birthday cakes. I remember the lamb that died and crying because I had snow in my stockings. I remember tumbling and turning like I was drowning, I remember when I realised I wasn’t a character in a book and I remember running. I never had any idea why, I just knew I had to go and go and go.

Cold air is harder to breath. It burns my nose and catches in my throat. Still my feet pound the footpath. Eventually the feeling of my lunch churning too high in my belly and the absence of oxygen in my brain brings me to a stop. The wind roars tremendously overhead, unabated. It carries me so high it’s like divine intervention, except I’m not on a hill or mountainside, or alone in a cave.

Generally I do everything slowly, without particular purposefulness or direction. I ponder, philosophise and rationalise. I walk here and there aimlessly, I cruise the footpath on two wheels. I watch the winter, observe the people. But sometimes I run. Not away from anything or after anyone, but because I can and the free winters air demands it. Because I need to remember why oxygen is necessary, my life depends upon it.

P.S. I totally dig this song, share it with the world Laura Marling - ghosts http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-vbyIkkHiQ