velleity
“Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul’s weather to all who can read it.”
Dear Simone,
I went for a long run last night to watch the sunset. I have a 12k loop that takes me to the beach and back. For the first twenty minutes, I dodge cars as I run from the Administrative Quarter where I currently live. My route takes me past Hassan Tower, where the corridors are tightly packed with people. I like witnessing the bustle. Women shopping for fish, fruit, and bread. Men pulling carts stacked high with bags of grains. Cats lounging and waiting to be petted by a warm hand. Young women looking at the silver trinkets and silk robes. Locals in traditional dress and tourists snapping photographs in all directions.
Yesterday I passed a man with six tiny pups in a cardboard box. Three black, one tan, and two chocolate. Each had small ears and sandpaper tongues the size of a pinky nail. I wanted one badly. I stopped for a moment to watch them sniff the ground and stretch their hind legs. For an instant, I let myself imagine what it would feel like to have one on my chest, tucked in a palm, as I strode home. Then, I pushed on. I kept running.
I run down the Av. Al Marsa to Rabat Beach. There's a lookout point past the Piranha Surfing School. The surfers and swimmers leap in the waves on the east side of the point. To the west, the surf is too dangerous. The waves crash against the rocks, and the undertow is very fast. I run west along the beach beside Ave. Moustapha Assayeh. Into the sunset. I prefer running later in the day when it is warm and windy.
There are no parks along the path. No hills once I get to the seawall. There are no trees save for a few palms between the beach and the street. The landscape is not varied. It is nothing like my seawall stretch back home where I could dance between forest and ocean. Fir and salt. I could stretch my toes in the cool sand and strike my heels in the soft mud. I could reach the vast sky or stride in the shadows between the trees.
In Morocco, the dunes spread their gold legs wide and dip their toes in the royal blue bath where the sky meets the sea. The constellations are the same, though my perspective is different.
Where I once stood on tiptoes at the mountain tops to see what lay beyond my limited scope, I sit with my palms on the earth, and chin tipped to feel the sunbeams bathe my body. I do not rush from event to task. I linger over each sip of my morning coffee. As I heat the oat milk on the stove, I slice fruit for oatmeal and cut the dates into little pieces. Breakfast takes an hour. We eat around eleven, and lunch is midday. I spend my morning writing, afternoon working, and evening running.
I am running toward things today, where I used to run away.
Breakfast was a banana and a scoop of almond butter. Coffee was always purchased from Viva, Oh Carolina, or JJ Bean. I rarely brewed my own cup in the morning. Before heading out to teach yoga at 6:15am or babysitting at 8am, I didn't have time. I spent the day outside my apartment and got home in time to eat, read, and sleep. The rhythm many people keep.
When I run, there is an ease in my body though I still feel tightness in my shoulders and chest.
I breathe deeper into my upper back and side ribs. I imagine a hand between my shoulder blades as I inhale and a palm at my navel as I exhale.
I don't run to track my duration or speed. I run to rinse.
To purge the day.
To treat the tiger to its snack.
I run to rinse the growl from my bones and feel my fur grow wider.
I run to shake the crystals loose from the mud.
I run to wake the birds!
Simone, is there anything as glorious as movement?
Is there any better feeling than the muscles expanding and contracting with the breath?
This aliveness is self-created and self-sustained.
Provokation is what I seek; I am bored by repitition and running is a constant though each event is never the same!
The beat, the breath, my body, my mood; the beast within slithers on the ground and slowly rises to its hind legs.
In ancient iconography, the Anguiped- a serpent with legs- was featured on magical amulets. The pagans wore these icons as a symbol of immortality and transformation.
My legs are snakes, Simone.
I have serpent legs and the heart of a tiger.
When I open my mouth, it is a flock of golden birds with polka dot wings and blush-purple beaks. Dusk coats their wingtips, and as they fly, the sky darkens. They carry midnight on their backs and dawn in their mouths. As they whistle, the sun rises.
The tide is very low right now. The new moon is around the corner and I feel its blankness in my body. I stopped at a barren strip of beach where small black crabs scurried over the rocks. Some carried small stones between their pinchers. I picked one up between my thumb and finger, holding it by the shell. Its legs waved helplessly in the air.
I held an entire universe in my palm, Simone. A good squeeze would have extinguished life.
How must it feel to hold that much power over people? What it must be like to know you have control over the limitations of life.
I put the crab down. I kept running.
Did I traumatize that crustacean? I've been plucked from locations where I felt safe. I've experienced duress from the external world outside of my command. I've been placed in a spot I did not choose in the world and had to deal with the consequences.
Sometimes I wish I could wake up and be a different color.
How others receive me is conditioned. It is a constant stretching of the mind to see people not for what you've been told they are but for why they are underneath all the layers. The context has been given to us, but what if you were to remove the constructs?
What is underneath?
That golden bird, or perhaps a dark panther.
A steady beat. A strong heart.
In school, Abderhamane learned to speak Arabic and create sounds with the throat, tongue, and lips.
I remember learning language through the lips, tongue, and teeth.
How does the location change the shape of the sound- and how do the contours of sound inform our identity of self?
Photo source.
