Running down the street not very fast during a pandemic

4/3/20, or, Everything has changed, not what I planned for, but here goes …

I lace on my running shoes and stretch; the sensation feels like it did before, but now it seems like it’s more important to make myself work out– I snap the door shut, plunge my ear phones into my ears, and head to the streets–

I start to run, not very fast, as I’ve learned from experience that if I run too fast too soon, I fizz out quickly. Better to go slow and steady. I am already poised to apply the “new rules”– safety by physical proximity– and almost immediately I shift myself off the sidewalk into the street (quick glance over my shoulder for traffic first) to give the pre-requisite social distance to a guy in a ball cap walking towards me. As I run by him it looks like he nods towards me and says something– or maybe he has earbuds in and is talking on his hidden phone to someone, or maybe he’s mumbling to himself. Alot of that these days, I suspect; I have Beastie Boys blasting already so can’t hear him anyway but nod and head back to the sidewalk once I have enough space. By the liquor store, a homeless person sits splayed-legged on the sidewalk, surrounded by addled piles of her transient life. A cigarette jutts from her mouth, she looks like she’s hopelessly just there, for now, for always. I veer to the right to jog past her. I’m breathing like someone who’s running, short huffs of air in and out– then, without thinking, I take a breath as I pass and a waft of her living essence– breath, body odor, droplets and molecules– FILLS my mouth and nose. I am startled. Shocked.

This is the new world, all air and smells and things we can’t see but we KNOW they are there and we don’t know but they might kill us… all this rushes through my brain as, without breaking stride, I start to recount the articles I’ve been reading about Covid-19 and hear the warnings from the public radio station I’ve been listening to non-stop, echoing the danger, the PANDEMIC, the word itself makes you think “pandemonium”, “panic”; watch yourself, wear a mask, don’t get close, the particles lie still in the air for moments, unwittingly you can walk right into them and that’s it, you’ve caught it–

I keep running, but now I’m scared. And mad. Goddamit. What if she’s a carrier? I breathed her in; I could smell and taste the stink. What if she’s SICK??? What if she’s Covid-19? Now what do I do!?! Shit. It’s too late, the damage is done. I’m pissed, at the world, at this ever-evolving new order, and I’m pissed at her. And then, just as quickly, I feel guilty. I’ve heard the reports of the already-difficult-now-even-more-complications the homeless face as they struggle with a world that warns, “Stay At Home.” Dealing with this frightening invisible obstacle on top of being homeless, just trying to live, one day stacked on top of another. She has it so hard, so much harder than me. Even if I do get IT, I am presumably healthy enough and, with no pre-existing conditions, can probably fight it off. I have the resourses to INCUBATE. I can be Safe-At-Home and can wash my hands. She probably can’t even do that. I turn the corner and head down the street, putting distance between disadvantage.

The weather in So Cal has been symbolically dull grey, chilly and rainy, perfect pandemic weather. It isn’t raining yet and I push myself to finish before the rain begins. I run down Golden West Ave, a street where sidewalks can appear on one block and then disappear. I take to the road. The asphalt is easier on my knees anyway. Only a few people out today, walking for exercise or to get somewhere. The neighborhood I live in is predominantly Asian. The people I pass, I give space. They are wearing masks, and some wear gloves as well. Even a few of the cars that pass, the drivers wear masks, their eyes peering over them, faces shrinking and disappearing behind their face covers. I don’t wear a mask, and I feel self-shamed and defensive. My gf is a doctor and I’m very aware of the distressing shortage of germ-preventative equipment for health-care professionals, gowns and gloves and masks. Everytime I see an N-95 mask worn by a citizen, I grouse under my breath and want to walk up and rip it off. How dare you! People who are saving lives are in danger! You’re only one person, how fucking dare you be selfish!

I had been working on a TV show when unceremoniously they pulled the plug. Anxiety was already high when, before we went to lunch, everyone was called to the stage and was told that, at the end of the day, we were done. There had been plans to try and rush through the project, shoot double content on single days, race against the virus and the news and the inevitable shutdown. We made it two days. There were alot of varying feelings of relief (some felt angry that they being made to risk our heath to make a TV show) and resignation (some wanted to make as much money as possible before disappearing into this abyss.) To me, it felt like it did when they called off school due to inclement weather: initially exciting but then a downer when you knew you’d be making up the day in the spring, when the weather was warm and the sun was out. This was still near the beginning of the serious realization of the pandemic– some people were taking it seriously, but many weren’t. It just wasn’t believable. We lived in a modern world; how was this possible? Two days later, the state government ordered us inside, stopped all businesses except for essential ones– grocery stores, drug stores, gas stations. By the time our show had shut down, the rush for supplies had already begun in earnest. I had already heard on the news and on set about the panic and hoarding, and I waiting until i absolutely had to go shopping. I wanted the stores to reset and restock, to be ready for people like me, late comers to the desperation. So I went into a Smart and Final the day before the order, and saw that many of the shelves were stripped bare. Cleaning supplies, paper goods, dry packaged goods, water– all gone. People rushed around the store, the panic audible in their eyes. It was hard to not catch that fever, and intially I caught it too– I put two gallons of 1% milk, and a large double box of Honey Nut Flakes in my cart, thinking if all else, I could survive on cereal if I had to.

Eventually I saw that we had plenty of food, wine and toilet paper to survive the initial stay. But the stories started coming in from the east coast; New York in particular was getting crushed, health-care people recycling masks, as they battled in a gushing pool of germ warfare. Obviously I’m sensitive, maybe a little moreso because of my personal relationship, to the plight of doctors and nurses unable to procure even the most rudementary preventative items, while an unsympathetic government deliberately moves too slowly to aid them, and in the meantime some asshole in Tennessee probably has hundreds of boxes of masks and jacks up prices in a greedy attempt to get rich off the sick and distressed.

So the N-95 masks on citizens get me agitated. But I also have read that the Asian culture in particular is well-aquainted with the concept of wearing masks in public, and have done many many years. It seems to be a semi-regular part of their wardrobe, as I was seeing masks on Arcadian Asians long before we reached this world-wide cautionary tale. They are prepared, whereas many of us Angelos now stand unsteadily and strattle the gap between these now-evident worlds. So I give myself a slap to my consiousness, begrudgingly tell myself to stay in my lane, figuratively and literally, as I turn the corner to run up Temple City Blvd.

It’s a slight incline up the street to the intersection of Temple City Blvd/Duarte Rd, and the constant stream of coronavirus information I am recounting as I run is taking my mind off the usual aches and pains and discomfort I feel any time I attempt to run.

Truth: I don’t like running. I know the benefits, I know how contributes to overall fitness and blah blah blah healthiness. But I’ve never embraced it, ever since I was in high school. I ran on the cross-country team for for years, and endured miles and miles of distance training, and sprints up sandy hills, and Icy Hot rubbed into battered hamstrings. My last year of cross country, I found myself in the midst of my second teenage growth spurt, gaining height and weight, which was cool, but also discovering that carrying that height and weight was a burden I had never experienced before. I was a runt entering junior high, and experienced my first growth spurt in the 8th grade. I became angular and gawky, tripping over my own feet, a theme that would unfortunately follow me into high school. Once, my junior year during basketball season, having been given the privilege of busting through the large paper mural and leading the varsity team onto the floor, I lept through the mural, got my feet tangled up with a cheerleader running across the floor in front of me, tripped, and fell to the raucous delight of everyone in the gym, including my teammates. On my back, I derisively tossed the ball toward a laughing Jon Gacinski , my face hot with embarrasment. But though I was gawky, I could always run. As a freshman, I had longer legs from the first spurt of growth, and precious little bulk, a perfect runner’s body. I also found I had an ability to finish strong, what my cross country coach called “a kick”; even after two and a half miles of slogging across trails and mud and gravel, lungs pinching and chest heaving, gulps of air and sweat stinging my eyes and face, I could still summon that kick on the last 1/2 mile of the course, when you could first see the finish line, a mirage too far away to start the kick just yet: kids would see the finish line, this grail of hope that the race was nearly mercifully over, and they would pick up their pace too soon. My coach would be on that final stretch, and I would pace myself until he yelled, “Go!” Then, I would put my head down and pump my arms faster; I could feel my breath audibly quicken in gutteral huffs as I pushed myself faster. One by one, I would start to pass other kids– not juts past, but blow by them. Whether for real or in my mind, I could feel them fade, lose a tick of momenteum, a half step, as I left them behind and went for the next victim. Like a video game, it was like I swallowed then and got stronger with each conquest. It gave me a rush, a thrill that would give me chills and push me even faster. As I continued racing from my freshman year into sophmore and junior seasons, I came to enjoy the thrill of those sprints at the end. I wasn’t the fastest runner for the first 2 1/2 miles, but I was a wild beast on that last leg. It fed my ego to see how many runners I could crush during that last rush to the finish line. Once I would cross, I would nearly collapse, my gasps for air pacified when I would glance behind me and see the line of runners filling the finish gate behind me, their race experience a little less fulfilled, while mine was that much more fulfilled. It was also the first time in my life I saw I had it in me to be able to dig deep, reach down for that surge of discipline that people need if they are going to be something more than just… something else. Life is like that; there are so many people in the world, and there’s a sense of “good enoiugh” that stills us and jusifies our means and our ends. It’s the same feeling that fuels the concept of “acceptable losses,” when we as a body of humans decide that an abstrct number of lives lost is a justifiable trade out for maintaining a life that none of us even yet grasp will never be the same again. The sooner we accept this, we are told, the easier it will be to get on with our lives. And we take a big breath, and we realize there is no need to sprint this one out. It’s a race where there are no winners.

As I’m running up the slight incline toward Duarte Road, I’ve worked up a sweat even on this dull and turgid gray day. A breeeze rattles the leaves of trees around me, and cools my face in that pleasing way. The philospopher Alan Watts once said, “You can’t sigh if there is no wind,” and it reminds me that I take my place in the physical world, I’m alive. But i can’t enjoy it. I’m thinking, “What’s in this breeze?” Is there someone I can’t even see, a block away, who has the Covid, and coughs and sends those particules of virus into the wind, carried down the block, and into my 6 feet of personal space? And I shake my head, wipe the sweat from my forehead but not from my eyes and face because you know that’s where the virus gets you, the “T” of your face (eyes-nose-mouth) so Don’t Touch Your Face, and I as I try to cull the pandemic dissonance in my brain, I realize I’m looking at WAY too much social media, but the thinking about all this while running keeps my brain busy and my mind off of my arthritic knee, and my achy ankle, and my tight chest as I mercifully make it up to the corner, and make the turn toward home.

Around the corner, I glance to the east behind me now and see it’s getting dark, large and looming and ominous.. I feel the first few wisps of rain against my cheek, and suddenly like Billy Pilgrim, I’m backwards in time, years ago, and my coach is standing in the street, and he’s yelling– “Run! Run!” –and so I take off.

I’m flying. I can feel the darkness behind me, gulping and growing. Ahead there’s light and there’s also dark clouds gathering and closing fast. But I’m 15, and my arms are pumping, and I’m growling and gasping as I pass one runner after another. I tell myself I’m gianing strength. I watch the sidewalk zip beneth my feet, and when I look up, I look ahead for the finish line and the runners gate, but it’s not there, not yet. And the truth is I’m not running very fast at all, anymore, and I really don’t know when it ends.