I talked to Jim Wharton in New York yesterday. Sometimes when I ask and he has time, he walks onto the sidewalk outside the clinic and holds his phone up so that I can listen to the sounds of the city. But yesterday when the man risked life-threatening frostbite to indulge me, there were no traffic noises, no sideswiped conversations, no dogs barking. New York City had taken the day off under the silent cover of snow. Jim said it was beautiful. It even sounded beautiful.
So this morning when I ran, I thought warm and guilty Floridian thoughts … and sent them to New York, exchanging them for the muffled chill of the Upper West Side.
I often think of New York as I run here in Gainesville. I know that at the exact same second I roll out of my door, the runners of New York are rolling out of theirs. Together, we shake sleep off our shoulders and take on the morning. As my foot hits the pavement, it’s in perfect lockstep with thousands of footsteps in New York.
Together, we are training for the ING New York City Marathon.
This is communion.
Of course, all runners (even those in my mind) are faster than I am and leave me behind, so communion is replaced quickly by abandonment issues, self-loathing, and ever-present disappointment at not being Kenyan. But for a few sweet moments, I am a thousand miles away and part of a world much larger than my own. I am in Central Park, running in the snow.
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