running and whimsy

I feel a little frightened and tingly. The annual Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon will be tromping past Boheme early early Sunday morning. Oh, only about 20,000 runners. And I’ve never witnessed the sight of that many runners stampeding all at once. So I’m kinda tingly and overwhelmed about it all. Oh, and it’s not called the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon fer nuthin’. A band — The K*obbs? — will be playing right across the street from Boheme starting at about 6:30 a.m. Sorry, K*obbs. I don’t know you. But do please come on over and buy some coffee.

So some marathon-related stuff:

Today, a Boheme customer said her boyfriend ran in last year’s marathon as part of his life goal of running a marathon in every state. I love stuff like that. Like, who thinks of that, really? “I want to run a marathon in every state.” I love people who think or do stuff that I would never think of — mainly because I’m curious about what motivates them to say something like “I want to run a marathon in every state.” The girlfriend said, “If he does it, he’ll be part of this elite kind of marathoners’ club. He’s 38, hates to train, doesn’t really run, and whenever he crosses a finish line, I give him a beer.” Hahahaha! I love that; it’s just plain cool — the otherness of that, to me. I don’t run in marathons, so something like this wouldn’t even blow across my landscape. Still, it’s so interesting. There’s a certain whimsy to that kind of thinking that totally charms me.

Also … another customer says he always stands at the same location every year to watch the runners and he always runs into the same woman and they just chat and watch the marathon. So he says, “Now we have a kind of ‘Same Time, Next Year’ thing going on with the marathon. I’ll be standing in that spot tomorrow and I bet she shows up.” He says they just hang out for that brief period of time of the marathon; that’s all. It’s not romantic in the classic man/woman sense — (mainly because he’s gay) — but the fact that he does that and she does that, I dunno; it’s still romantic to me. It’s two people giving over to — well, again, a kind of whimsy. They have no connection in life otherwise, but they are each other’s spontaneous marathon date. Every year, they are committed to that moment. And he was so looking forward to seeing her; his face lit up talking about it and he was thoroughly unabashed, totally surrendered to what those moments are — their secret ritual. It just made my heart burst a little. The weird random ways that people connect. The ways they find each other. The spark of that. How it has its own life, its own electric tingle. It’s like some divine serendipity. God’s a romantic, he is, up there in his heaven, not wanting people to be alone, just giddy sometimes with the ways he allows people to collide.

3 Replies to “running and whimsy”

  1. runs are so exciting! when we’re back in Texas, i hope to get back into doing them, especially the Cowtown 10K. i did it every year. i was always near the back of the pack, but i didn’t care. when you get a huge run, it’s always such a spectacle, and if you do it every year, you get into things like beating your personal best, things like that.

  2. I LOVE marathons. My grandmother’s house is at the halfway mark for the Boston Marathon so it was a yearly tradition growing up that we would stand on the side and watch … absolutely thrilling!!

    I love, too, the thought of two people randomly meeting every year for a marathon – it is totally Same Time Next Year!

  3. It’s like when the guy at the coffee counter tells you in perfectly appropriate friendliness that you’ve got lipstick on your teeth. Or the kid at the bookstore counter notices your purchase and you chat about it for five minutes. Or when you get a “traffic buddy” who you stick with for four states, letting each other in when there’s a jam.

    God is a romantic, I agree.

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