Yes, I know I constantly complain I'm still fat. Yes, I know that each pound adds 1-2 seconds per mile. Yes, I know I look like an apple. I'm running faster at the same heart rate, so I think I'm okay. I've lost a pound in the last ten days, but to be intellectually honest, that could be just from finally being able to resume peristalsis after 10 days of coffee, cheese and croissants in Paris. I don't have to tell you what travel and the change of diet does to me. Plaster of Paris in the pipes.
I'm fully confident that I'll be ten pounds lighter by the fall. Yes, I know that it's also 100% certain that--come winter--I'll put the ten pounds right back on. It's not my fault that I was born to yearn anything made with dough and fried in lard when it's cold. It's in my genes. I'm like a walrus that needs that layer of blubber to survive in the cold waters of the Arctic. Yes, I know I can put on extra clothes. Yes, I know I can turn up the heat in the house. I'm telling you, it's my genetics and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.
If I didn't eat this bear claw now, I would be thinking about it every five minutes for the rest of my life. My body wanted one, not me. It needed this fine delicacy. I know I have a race next week. I know that I'll be running heavy again like last year. I know my man boobs will be jiggling beneath my singlet, and that the risk of my nipples getting chaffed has increased ten-fold. Well, maybe I'm just tired of maintaining all the time--fighting the forces of nature. Maybe, I'll be happier if I stop the fight, and just give in to who I really am. Be the walrus. I'm going to die anyway, and no matter how well I live, that death will not be pleasant. I'm going to create a motto and put it on a personal flag:
I know I have dreams of someday winning an age-group trophy at a race. I know I have dreams of being worshipped and feared by the other 90 year-old men in that age group--in the year 2051. But what about this moment? If I live life fully now, then isn't that happiness?
Remember the catacombs in Paris? Well, let me tell you, I didn't make it through that dark claustrophobic musty mole hole lined with hundreds of thousands of bones and skulls without a few dents in "My Armored Suit Of The Denial Of My Own Mortality" that I wear like an armadillo in a cage of hungry, gun-toting hunters drunk on Coors. In the great span of time, I'm already being dug up by an archeologist a few thousand years in the future who thinks (because of the remnants of my flag) that I was a high priest who worshipped a walrus god named Lard.
All I have is this present moment, and this bear claw, and Oprah, and your love and concern, and your beautiful face. Give me some yum, baby. Life is all about the yum. Mmmmmm, yummmmmm.
__________
©2011 Jimmy Brunelle
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1 comment:
hear, hear - bring on the United States of Lard. All we needed was a flag
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