rock ‘n’ roll, baby!! pt. 1

Woke up this morning 4:45 to open Boheme extra early for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon. I still felt all jittery and heart-poundy about it. I’d never seen a marathon before …. til today. And wow.

Wow. Amazing. I am still awestruck by the whole thing, really.

I have some cell phone photos of it that I may be sifting through to see if any of them look okay. And MB — the world’s most awesome cameraman — took his digital video camera and an old-style 8 mm camera to film the action, just for a little project for himself. (He does this professionally so he ain’t no slouch.) Soo … if I can get some still images from what he shot, well, so much the better. I mean, even after watching the marathon sweep past Boheme, we still came home and watched all his footage. Lived through the thing all over again. It was just so so wonderful. So, fingers crossed, I’ll get some of what he shot. But for now, just some quick random images and impressions that I just want to get down, to remember:

~ The sky was dull grey and puffy this morning, like a sky that didn’t get enough sleep. At first I thought it didn’t look quite ready for such a day, but then I looked again and saw a soft soothing blanket. Nothing jarring or too bright. A comfort sky. Good for the runners, with just the right amount of chill blowing through the seams. I dashed around in my black yoga pants, brewing coffee, watching the band set up across the street. Literally, directly across the street. Right in front of Boheme. I had no idea they’d be RIGHT THERE. So that was cool. I listened to their sound checks, listened as they blasted “Takin’ Care of Business” through their speakers at 6:00 a.m. while they finished setting up their stage. Here I was, puttering around my silly coffeehouse venture, and I suddenly felt part of something huge, way beyond me. Inside, I felt it roaring towards me, louder each minute, as if my blood were pounding in rhythm with the steps of 40,000 distant feet.

~ I fell in love with our street corner band The Kobbs. (There are bands all the way along this marathon’s route.) Seriously, though, kinda fell in love with them. I don’t know if it was uniquely them or if I just would have loved whatever band played across the street, supplying a pulse, a beat, for the runners to run to. Although, on the other hand … how many of the other bands would have played their entire hour-long set in their bathrobes and looked adorable and turned me into a twittery school girl groupie? Well, not tooo many, I’m sure. And more on THAT humiliation later. Lord.

~ The wheelchair runners rolled by first, heads down, all of them. You saw only helmets, arms, and wheels. No faces. Not a one. I started to tear up just witnessing that, the determination in that pose. The total single-mindedness. The HUGE arms shoving and shoving and shoving at those wheels. I didn’t exist to them. My feeble cheers of “woo!” didn’t exist to them. The band didn’t exist to them. There was only the road and what they had to do. That seemed to be all. Everything. And I felt almost called OUT by that. It practically seared through me: What in my life am I allowing to ask THAT of me? To ask me to see only the road and what I have to do? What? Weird, how I’m just standing on a sidewalk, sipping a coffee, and that thought rips right through me. A thought that seemed completely IN the moment and completely outside of the moment all at once. And it felt too big to contain right then. Too much to consider. I need to think about that more, really. But my woo-hooing stopped — instantly — and I felt almost like I should drop to my knees and thank them for letting me see that, letting me see inside them, see something in them so lacking in me.

~ The Kenyans blew by next. So fast, it almost didn’t register. I remember lots of pairs of bright red tennis shoes and how lightning fast they were, how effortless.

~ Then the swelling roar. The pounding horde. The charging feet. Lord in heaven. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It felt like an explosion, inside of me, outside of me. All the runners, the whole world, really, came stampeding up the street. For a split second, I just wanted to fling my coffee down and jump into the fray. I wanted to BE in that. I wanted to KNOW that. Outside looking in just didn’t seem right. I was missing out on the THING. The thing that seemed like the only thing that anyone should be doing. It was so primal. So visceral. In that moment, I felt sure that a mere step down off that sidewalk and something new would be pounded into my mind that I would never ever know just standing there. I’m not even explaining this well. Dammit. Maybe it was just the movement. Maybe it’s because they were all going somewhere I wasn’t. But there was something more, I think — for me — in the whole thing. There was something of hope in that, something of fearlessness, in what I saw. It would be easy to compare them all to charging beasts or wild things because of the sound, the feral pound of it all. But they weren’t beasts. They were all so totally human and so totally divine at the same time. They were transcendent to me. I swear, I saw fully clothed people being more naked than I’ve ever seen people be. Some were old, but they ran. Some were fat, but they ran. Some wore leg braces, but they ran. One, a little old lady, was even blind, but she ran. As I stood there awestruck as if I were witnessing the cloud of fire on Mt. Sinai or something, this old woman shot past me on the sidewalk and plowed right into the light pole. She teetered, I gasped, and made a move towards her. But she just straightened herself back up, like Gumby unrolling himself, as if nothing had happened. Then she flicked her wrist and I saw it, the walking stick, unfold, unroll, whatever, as she started tapping the sidewalk to find her way again. She trotted off past me, a little unsteadily, and I saw the back of her t-shirt: Legally Blind Community, it read. She was old. She was fat. She was basically blind. But she ran. They all ran. Whatever the personal odds against them, they just ran. Whatever their myriad doubts, they just ran. Whatever anyone might think of them, they just ran. And that rebellion thrilled me, made me feel bigger inside, that rebellion of hope against despair. The beautiful naked hopeful running.