Usually This Is Healthy

     Today we're gonna have a guest writer, ladies and gents. My mom, when she was sixteen.

     Recently she found an old English paper marked 2/2/87, nicely typed. It was about one of her few running experiences. She's 16 at the time of its writing. It sounds eerily like...me.

     I have also drawn visual aids to assist your imaginations as you read. Here you go.

Stefanie Black

College Comp.

#3, Essay

2/2/87

     I like to be a spectator at most sports, and I even enjoy particiating in most of them, but if there is one sport I detest above all, it is jogging. Jogging, to me, is not a sport in the true sense of the word. You see, the word "sport" usually implies something that people would do for enjoyment as well as for recreation. Therefore, jogging does not qualify as a sport, although I admit that there are those insane fanatics who do indeed derive some pleasure from relentlessly jarring their bodies down miles of road every day. I must be the exception. They say that jogging's good for circulation, respiration, and perspiration, but I've seen whole rooms full of people getting more stimulation watching the second half of the Super Bowl.

     I learned firsthand about the wonder and exhilaration of jogging while visiting my favorite aunt in California one year. I also experienced the feeling of completely jellied knees, and of having displaced various internal organs, some of which have never fully recovered.

     To begin with, I see no reason why any normal person should, while on vacation, feel a need to atone for their sins, but California is a strange land. Thus, I found myself donning the uniform of a jogger and blindly following my aunt's "exercise routine" at 10:00 a.m. 

"Believe me, Stef," she told me enthusiastically, "you won't believe how great it is to be out there, jogging down a peaceful country road, early in the morning. The view is also really incredible--you'll love it!" I wished we could just drive down to see this great view.

     Before leaving, however, I learned that the conscientous jogger will not jog without first warming up with a "few calisthenics," I figured out that this tradition was started to either a) put off the moment of departure, or, b) to get the body into a state of semi-shock beforehand.

     A "few calisthenics" and a half-hour later, I was ready to take on Jane Fonda--after I regained consciousness.

     "Now," said my aunt triumphantly, "we're ready to go!" I started to ask her if she'd mind terribly if I stayed home and kept track of Donahue for her, but she ignored my pleas and helped me "briskly" walk the half-mile driveway to the road where, she promised, I'd find relaxation and contentment. At the main road, after looking around briefly, I announced:  

     She said it was okay, and that they were just down the road a piece. Now, understand that there is no known measurement for a "piece," and in this case it stood for about ten miles. I doubted I'd ever see them again.

     On that cheery note, we set off down what really did look like a peaceful, country road. However, contrary to popular myths, California is not only a land of sunshine and freeways, but of avid country drivers, and the left-over monsoons from Asia. It was probably one of these little monsoons which caused the twenty-foot-long-two-feet-deep "puddles."

      I thought that the land of 1,000 lakes was Michigan or someplace like that. I figured that with the new average of 1.6 cars per minute and forty-five of those killer puddles for every mile, within three minutes I'd start growing seaweed on the north side of my sweatsuit.

     Undaunted by the continual stream of cars and water, my aunt kept going on and on. I began to notice a small pain in my side and decided that it was probably the cause of the spots I was now seeing, but being brave is part of being a good sport. I think my aunt's body was numbed to the abuse it was being subjected to, because she found it possible to keep up a running conversation (literally) with me. Probably trying to keep me from passing out. 

    I made a choking sound that meant a lot of things and kept jogging.

     The miles rolled on by until, at some blessed, unseen command she stopped running. From behind, concentrating on the "exhilaration" of all this, I stumbled into her outstretched arm and collapsed facedown on the grass.

     I stayed there awhile, and then noticed that the buzzing I'd been hearing was my aunt's voice. She was still pointing toward some distant misty hills covered with sheep and silhouetted nicely against the returning monsoon clouds. 

     Her eyes gleamed. 

    I stood up and focused on one sheep until it stopped spinning and the scene was no longer in black and white. "Yes," I said between gasping breaths, "Nice. How do we get home?"

     She shrugged flippantly. 

     I thanked her for the experience and crawled home alone.







Words and art by Sabrina Smith copyright 2013