When Do We Stop Running?

There I was on the phone with EVG last night.

I think I would like to have a scheduled call with him a couple of times a week, just to hear THAT VOICE.

The last big and tall guy I dated, though handsome in a traditional American sort of way (well, he was a traditional American sort of boy, after all -- Naval Academy grad, etc), had a voice like an adenoidal teenager. And frankly, a tiny penis. There's nothing more disappointing to a girl than getting a guy naked only to find he's hung like a light switch. That one didn't last long.

Anyway, as I was saying.

The voice. It's not Barry White. It's not James Earl Jones. It's not just espresso-colored. It's the sludge left over in the espresso machine. If the face of Half Dome fell into the Yosemite Valley, his voice would be the sound of the rocks dropping.

So I mentioned how tired I was from the previous night and that I was going directly to bed. So, apparently, was he. One of the great things about being a grown-up is going to bed whenever you feel like it, even if the sun is still up. Remember being a little kid, and fighting to stay up until 10:00? Now, a grown-up, sometimes I want to go to bed at 7:00. AND I CAN. I love that.

He reminisced about being one of those little kids running around the streets until all hours.

I reminisced about being one of those little kids always running. In fact, little kids are always running, anyway. I asked, when do we stop running? Kids run for the sheer joy of the movement, it seems. I have a photo that I took of my niece, probably at 3 or 4, at the park at the Statue of Liberty. She is running across the grass toward the camera, and her face is alight with excitement and joy and vitality, her hair caught mid-bounce. When I look at that photo, it says one thing to me: Childhood.

You know what? I said. I think I'm going to start running again. Just like a little kid. He laughed.

I'd like to see that, he said.

He complained about how cold it is. I protested, saying, not cold. It's just like the weather in the mountains. I was looking out my kitchen window towards the west when I said it. The sun was setting, and the clouds had that same rolling Rocky Mountain look they used to have when I would drive out of Denver.

You're a freak, he said with affection. (He once told me he likes me because I'm odd. I told him I was the most normal-looking weirdo he would ever meet. My freak-flag just doesn't fly out in the open.)

Not a freak, I said. I just really miss the mountains. A lot.

It was a nice conversation. He attempted to make a tentative plan for the weekend.

If I don't have to work on Saturday, I'd like to come and spend some time with you, he said.

Well, let's just play that by ear, I said. This time if I feel disappointed, I'll be sure to let you know I'm disappointed. Since it seems to have hurt your feelings the last time I didn't seem disappointed enough.

And if I have to work on Saturday, he said, laughing, we'll do something next week.

I started to laugh, too.

I'd love that, I said, and hung up.

Today, I am going to run somewhere. Even if it is just across the street. Just to run like a little kid. For the hell of it.