Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber is playing. I am sipping at my second cup of coffee, the composition tugging at everything inside me. How can music make one feel this way. Perhaps I should look up the science behind it, the anthropological connections that might be.
Earlier in the morning, when I began my run, a pair of teenagers, a boy and a girl, were already racing around the track. Perhaps they were a family, perhaps friends. I couldn’t be sure. They ran beautifully – fast, graceful, tightly composed running. High above, the waning crescent moon shone like an incomplete lamp.
I thought of them as the music rose and fell through crests and waves – the visible strain on their faces yet the effortless rhythm of their legs.
Midway through the run, I was joined by Ashwini. The track had begun to appear from its pack of powdery dust. Two rounds later, there were eight of us, running the last lane – lane10 – in a tight pack, our bodies barely inches away, sweat lined arms and elbows often brushing, connecting. We were breathing the same air but also circulating each others.
I finish the coffee and share the music with a friend. I get a reply: It has the feeling of a great big deep mental sigh.
Sometimes the track feels like that too.
Writing about Running 