How You Stop Thinking
I am about a mile and a half into a 50-degree, full-on-sun, windy morning run. I am working at it, but not as hard as some other days where I have to talk myself through every step, to run to the next mailbox, to get to the corner. I am working on running-as-meditation, doing without thinking.
This is when running is the best. Left, right, left, right; my foot strikes right on the beat of the song I am hearing. Classical music training helps with this. I’ve not thought about running, that I am actually doing it, for a few blocks now? Oh shit, I’m thinking about it again. I glance at the dog, tongue flying. He’s not thinking about anything except me giving him permission to mush, his spring uncoiling. He’s hoping I’ll nudge the pace up a bit. I could stand to be more like him. I try to let my mind Nestea Plunge back into my new running playlist, trying to train my brain to keep my body moving down the sidewalk without providing its usual internal monologue about my legs, which feel like cement, or a slightly nagging stitch, or that running is absolutely for anyone else but me.
I grew up in a family that had quite a bit of natural athletic inclination. My dad probably could have been a pro athlete. Fast and muscular, he used to get scouted at public park hockey rinks and has Popeye biceps without actually lifting weights. My sister and brother naturally loved to kick a ball around the backyard; my brother played hockey. I cheered from the stands and learned to read before kindergarten started. If there was an excuse to get out of gym class, I had it.
Somewhere along the line I came to accept I was a brain, and my body was here to cart it around, to read books here and there and everywhere, to lift my Ticonderoga to write, to hoist my Jansport and walk to class. That’s it.
It wasn’t until I was in my mid-20s and legitimately sick from anxiety that my doctor laid it out there: I needed to start moving my body more. I laughed. “KATHLEEN,” he commanded, in the beautiful accent that makes my name sound so much prettier than it is. The silence hung there. I relented, because he scared me in that way that my actually-very-gentle dad could scare me just by saying one word, sending me skittering.
I chose yoga because it seemed….the easiest. Even though I couldn’t even touch my toes when I bent over. I stuck with it, even though I didn’t really want to. I don’t know why. But suddenly I could reach my toes, I could fall forward into dancer’s pose without falling over, I could hold a plank and push back into downward dog and then back into a plank without landing on my face. I kept going even though I couldn’t often distinguish my right from my left— still can’t. My daily stomachaches began to abate.
One night, I was at a favorite bar nursing a heartache with a tall glass of alcohol and a few friends, sandwiched in the middle of a booth. A guy approached. “Come dance with me,” he said, or something like that. I remember it wasn’t really a question, but it was still an invitation.
“I definitely did not come here to dance,” I replied, and stared at him, hoping he’d walk away. It didn’t work. He didn’t smile, or ask again, really, but he also didn’t blink. I had to admire the guts. I nudged my friend to let me out, and I took his hand. When we got out on the dance floor, I realized he could swing dance. And that’s what we were about to do.
I tried to nope outta that situation right quick, my body stiffening. But he tightened his grip slightly, and it was somehow not threatening. I quickly counted the beats but he was already a step ahead, and I had only the barest clue what I was doing. I couldn’t catch up. He stopped and leaned over, and walked me through the steps once. I was laughing. “I can’t learn that fast,” I said as he straightened up and started to move. “Don’t think!” he yelled.
I could feel a weird panic rising but tried to settle into it, like, This is not rocket science, Katie. A few bars later, I had it. Without thinking. No counting. I just felt for his hand gently directing me this way and that, his wallet chain hitting my hip as we twirled. He gave me an approving eyebrow. I think we danced a couple more. And then at the end, he released my hand, gesturing toward my friends, and I enveloped myself back into their fold. He had won me over, at least a little, but he didn’t ever try to close a deal, not even a drink. Maybe he thought he’d be going back on an unsaid promise, I’m not sure. Never found out. I respected that, too.
The dog stops to sniff and pee, and so I stop running for a minute, even though it’s been quite awhile before I have thought about my steps, or the broken toe that’s still healing, or the music that’s playing, or … anything. I’ve been subconsciously writing this essay as Sonny and I jog along together. I feel that tide of runner’s high come in and pick me up and carry me, like when you get off a boat and feel like you’re still swaying on the waves. I’m eager to get running again before I lose it, but Sonny’s on the trail of some varmint. I tug his leash.
When I return to the typewriter in my mind, I remember this happened to me one other time, in the same time period. It was my best friend’s birthday. We got dressed up and went to Famous Dave’s on salsa night. I’m not sure why. It wasn’t a regular hangout, and none of us salsa danced, but there we were, a whole table full of us.
Even though I usually was ignored at bars and mostly relished it, a guy appeared at the table and wanted to dance. I know I told him no, but again found myself out on the dance floor. I was still an exposed nerve. I told him, “Look man, I am not a salsa dancer AND I am definitely not interested, OK?”
He agreed, saying, “I can still teach you.” He took me aside and showed me the basic steps, walking them out for me until I could repeat them without his help, then taking my hand and walking me through them as a team. I remember him saying the same thing as the other guy: Stop thinking. Start feeling.
Then he pulled me out on the dance floor and he could really move. Every time I mis-stepped he said the same thing — Whoops, you’re thinking. Stop thinking. We danced through a few songs, and he was adding new and more complicated steps in each successive song. I started having fun in spite of myself. He leaned in and said, You know, you’re naturally really good at this. You should think about dancing more often.
Though looking back, I think it was a genuine compliment, I know I gave him a look that warned him. He shrugged. We danced one more, and he whipped me around on the floor and dipped me at the end. He said we should go dancing sometime. I said goodnight and disappeared into the scrum of my friends.
OutKast’s B.O.B. comes on at mile three. It’s a killer, and I do it to myself on purpose. The pace is unrelenting and brutal, right when my thinking brain steps back in and I really want to let myself off the hook. I can come up with any excuse to quit, knowing no one is there to enforce what I do or don’t do.
But if I just listen and marvel at how fast they go, how layered the sound is, I don’t think about my feet or how tired I’m getting, or how steep that final hill is, or how good it would feel to stop and walk — if I get my thinking brain to shut up and blank out my mind, the beat carries me and it’s almost like I am flying. Then I get two things: The run and the essay, which spills out when I get home and sit down to type.
