Standing next to a bicycle in the former capital of These United States, looking westward

yesterday, i stood in the woods less than a mile from here, wandered farm plots largely cover-cropped for the winter, and watched the commuter rail go by through the trees.

this city has history, quite a lot of it for this young country, and a queer sort of staying power. and like most such cities, time has worn it thin, so the landscape begins to show through the holes and the threadbare seams.

and this morning, my friend says to me "I'm thinking about Albuquerque. About how it will be out of water in 50 years. How, when I'm old, I will have the memory of when people started to leave the city, and when it became one of the first American cities to cease. And how all the people who leave Albuquerque will be tied together by that common experience, and how it won't happen all at once, and the city will persist in the cultural imagination for a long while after that...

and after a while, that will just be what is, and I'll get used to it."

Friends,
i have terrible news.
in the 11th hour, an agreement has been reached
and Status Quo has been snatched from the jaws of sudden, jarring disruption.
The great serpent which coils about the world has paused, and after a moment's contemplation, chosen not to swallow its own tail.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, we will get up, and we will go to work.
currency will wear deep, meandering channels through the middle of our lives.
everything will proceed as normal.

My very deepest condolences.

"after a post-death-announcement bump, the market finished down a fraction"

victory in the war on terror is the feeling you get immediately before the nausea hits.
the instant when your gorge has not yet risen,
two moments before you go tearing down the hall, salt seeping in under your tongue.
it is the thought you have three beats before you wonder if you'll make it to the toilet.
four beats before you make it. (or don't).

when you win the war on terror, you haven't yet arrived at the moment of reflection, hunched over with your own close sounds bouncing back up at you, wet breaths.

when you can see a little of your own face, and a lot of your own lunch, and the bathroom ceiling, and a single dark, curled hair, by the wall near your left hand.

when you feel spent, wretched and sour. and you wait, knowing you're empty, but knowing the heaving will come again. spitting to clear the taste from your mouth, but the taste is coming from your throat, and trickling down from your sinuses.

you don't feel any of that, at the moment of triumph.
in that moment, you have reached deep into your own imagination, and ripped out the enemy from your nightmares. you are fearless, because you are more powerful than any of the dark things that live in your dreams. you command armies, and the taste of blood is in your mouth.

and you have not yet paused to think that this blood tastes much like all the others.
and the things which have sustained you are already spoiling in your gut.

and later you will scrub your teeth, repeatedly.
and maybe wonder, while swishing another mouthful of listerine, when you began equating the taste of blood and ash with a sense of peace.

but the thought will be fleeting. it has been a very long time, and any other sort of closure would chafe on the new shapes that our bodies have taken.

this is something you can do, right at this very minute. or at the very next available minute.
go run a mile.
seriously. as fast or slow as you need to. but find a spot that's one mile off from one other spot. use googlemaps, even. start at one of those spots, and run to the other one.

here's the catch:
don't wear running shoes.

what i mean is you can run that far barefoot.
yep, even in a city. maybe especially in a city.
and yes, even right now, in mid-march.
if there's still snow where you are, you may want to run a bit faster.

i'm not saying it might not hurt. you might come back with blisters. but you will only step on glass if you don't look where you're going.

there are hazards in the city, but i'm not convinced that shoes will ward them off, or that bare feet invite them. the city does not have a monopoly on hazards. they lie in believing that the ground beyond your front step is inherently, exponentially more dangerous than the floor behind your front door. that your body is a china shop, and the world is a bull. that your two feet can't be trusted to carry you on their own. that you'll be safer in a house, in a car, in running shoes.

don't believe it. running shoes cause cancer.
not to mention pronation, supination, shin splints, lower back pain, heel strike and bad posture.

you'll be safer looking where you're going. you'll be safer being that barefoot weirdo. nobody wants to mess with her. if she runs around with no shoes on, on this street? there's no knowing what she's capable of.

haul wind into your lungs. feel the prickle of concrete against the soles of your feet, and wonder at how we live in places coated over with something so rough and hard and inhospitable. run, and know that with enough time, and practice, you could run twice that far, or ten times. you could run 'til the pavement fades away to sand beneath the tender soles of your feet.

it stays with you, and is worth remembering, frequently. that blisters will heal, given time. that it's hard to always look where you're going. that our bodies didn't arrive at their current shape wearing running shoes, or living in smooth-floored houses. that you can pick out the glass afterwards, and stepping on it isn't the worst thing that's ever happened to you.