Running Commentary

Running Commentary #15
Saturday/November 10, 2012


     There's been a heavy acorn crop this year. People have been pulling out brooms and climbing ladders to clear sidewalks, driveways, reach, stretch, and sweep roofs. Who would have thought something as tiny as a thimble would cause such a fuss.

     As I ran a neighborhood street this morning, watching and listening to the early dawning sights and sounds of a new day, snapping noises could be heard, as acorn shells, unable to escape from the soles of my size ten running shoes, got flattened on the street. Popping sounds could be heard, made by car tires, catching an unlucky acorn that became a victim, made ready by non-motion.

     The morning air was nippy. An intentional cross-training-walk-only, soon re-defined itself as a jog-along, with a hurry-up pace. I was soon generating enough body heat to come off brain idle and energize 'stream-thinking.'

     The acorns are a dime a dozen.

     Appropriate cliche, I thought.

     Could that be an oxymoron, I wondered?

     What about the dime a dozen?

     Strange how the number ten bubbles up all the time.

     My feet are size ten.

     Big feet. Disappointment. Didn't exactly conform to mother's imagined Scarlett O'Hara's body
     type.

     I stopped in the street and picked up a half empty acorn shell and held it in my hand. As a child, living in the Hollow With No Name, half acorn shells weren't for squashing or throwing away; they were to be collected, stored, and used as tea cups for the king and queen of the woods dinner parties, or maybe just set aside to collect rainwater as a present for the Little People living in the woods. Acorns were purposeful; how-to-use ideas were forever arcing around an unbounded field of imagination. I tucked the half empty acorn shell safely into my pocket and fast walked on.

     Acorns aside for a moment, Americans have had a trying couple of weeks. Jiggering with another time change, the national election, a destructive hurricane that ripped the East Coast, followed by nature thumping the same land mass with a snow storm. Usually, running overcomes stress. but, these events have not been normal; stress has trumped running.

     Foremost, I was worried about my youngest son, Joel, in New York City. Living without electricity, or heat, and in the dark. Maybe no food? Now, that's serious business. Growing up, I was imprinted with Depression tales of the effects of hunger.

     The morning jog-walk wasn't over. Forty-five minutes minimum. That's the self-rule. Then back to modernity and the continuing hunt for up-to-date news--on cable or the Internet.

     Strange--all of a sudden, a vision of paper dolls floated into consciousness. With an extra dime, mother could buy us a book full of paper doll cut-outs. My sisters and I could while away an afternoon cutting out their clothes, re-dressing them, moving them about, having them talk to their cut-out friends, or move them in and out of cut-out three dimensional structures, we'd put together from the patterns in the book--or, we could fashion houses from twigs, moss, rocks, and acorns, found in the woods, bringing our creations into a physical world for make believe play.

     With all the time spent Internet searching for news of the storm, Sandy, the economy, and election politics, I became aware of how irritating it was to find side pictures, with teasy headlines, of and about, the likes of Kim Kardashian, or Britney Spears, or a Lindsay Lohan, competing with important news that was actually affecting people's lives. These gals were frozen, like preserved insects, caught in amber. I wanted to slap my hands over my eyes. It was kind of like watching stills of a scary movie. Kim, Britney, and Lindsay, were such sad, painful, figures. Manufactured big boobs, glitzy jewelry, and slinky clothes, didn't make 'it feel better.'

     Then, I got it. These are today's paper dolls. Only, you can't cut them out of a computer screen, cut out their paper clothes, re-dress them, move them about, have them talk to their cut-out friends. They are untouchable. They can't live in the land of play reality. They are edited, and re-edited; the un-reals captured by the glass screen of technology.

     The Lindsay's, Britney's, and Kim's, are destined to be one dimensional. They can't enter the unseen multi-dimensional world of the Little People, spirits found in the caves, hills, and woods, which surrounded the Hollow With No Name. While not seen--not wanting to be seen--the Little People are there to help and protect the Cherokee people. Too, they preserve memories and imagination. They adore music. Maybe they heard me singing to the music of my I-Pad, caused me to stop and pick up the half acorn, followed me home, smiled and watched as I took it from my pocket and placed it safely on my desk. Their duty of teaching a lesson was done for the day.