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Tarmac Meditations #113: State of Rain

February 24, 2013 By Michael Lebowitz Leave a Comment

I woke up groggy from yesterday’s migraine. I was going to meet the group at 5:30 for a run. Didn’t happen. Opened up my computer and began to wander and wonder and watch as the time went away. Came across an article in the Times that mentioned Kipling; checked out the whole poem and thought, okay I can use this to start writing. Copy and paste leads to my eye catching another quote, this one from LBJ ( Lyndon Baines Johnson to you Canadians-once my beloved President). His quote (below) made me wonder what the hell was going on, then and now. First thoughts are often a writers best friend in the early morning and often his worst enemy when the clear light of day shows up. Another copy and paste and there I was, nearly all dressed, sort of written out, still groggy, knowing that run needed to happen. Got the shoes, pulled on my not quite big-enough big boy pants and thought to go out the door. F..k it I said…and the rest is a little Tarmac after I returned, wet, tired, no longer groggy and totally present in my day’s work.

“…And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame, / But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star…” ~ Rudyard Kipling “When Earth’s Last Picture is Painted”

The State of the Union is “free and restless, growing and full of hope.” ~ Lyndon B. Johnson 1965

LBJ????? I must have missed that part when I was goin’ down the road, feelin’ like cannon fodder.

F..k it! I’m all in…I said that this morning to no one in particular as I looked out at the rain and laced up my speedy go fasters.

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Tarmac Meditations #112: FaceBook THIS!

February 17, 2013 By Michael Lebowitz 4 Comments

“How are you feeling Michael?”, says Mr. FaceBook. Which comes first? Crabby, Cranky or Grumpy is how I’m feelin. SUCK on THIS is how I’m feelin’. Take a freakin’ hike FB is how I’m feelin’.

Thinkin’ I could use a run right about now …

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Tarmac Meditations #111: Notes From A Nightmare

February 10, 2013 By Michael Lebowitz Leave a Comment

A Six Word Story

Are you clean? Totally. Like Pilate.

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Tarmac Meditations #110: Roll on You Rollin’ River

February 3, 2013 By Michael Lebowitz Leave a Comment

There are days when my running is not about running at all. I went out this morning to listen to Dylan’s new album, Tempest. I really only listen to music intently when I run, especially if the music is new to me. In one song, “…In silence there he waited for/Time and space to intervene…” A little further along, “The orchestra was playing/songs of faded love…” Me and Mr. Dylan gettin’ our mileage before sunrise…been doing that for a very long time; we’re gonna keep at it for a while longer on account of “I ain’t dead yet my bell still rings/I keep my fingers crossed like the early Roman kings.” ( I get some part of that..the rest just sounds good.) The real thing is, some people who write go to read Keats, or Kesey, or Mailer, or Doctorow or Atwood in order to get their directions to their own private stash of personal words…inspiration is part of it but so too is being surrounded by the rhythms and constructions that made the reader want to be a writer. For me it is Dylan, and Van Morrison, Lyle Lovett and Guy Clark, John Lennon and Marvin Gaye. So I light out, put the headphones on and go to the river of words that will take me where the takin’ needs to go. Roll on you rollin’ river. Roll on.

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Taramc Meditations #109: Freedom Is

January 27, 2013 By Michael Lebowitz Leave a Comment

It was cold yesterday. Winter goddam cold. The MacAss50, a fun run of various distances is in the books. A lot of locals showed up, the TrailRunner Magazine Trail Runner of the year 2012 showed up, LongRun pictures showed up. LongRun walked a bunch of miles, up and down, took a mess of shots, got some that are okay.

On the way back to the finish area LongRun, that’s me, ran a little, camera held tight, forest quiet, winter cold, clouds of breath. For a few minutes I wasn’t sixty something and overweight/under-trained, sleep deprived, anxious and filled with a sense of wariness; for a moment I was present with myself, tall and straight, runnin’ easy in the winter woods, knowin’ that everything that’s now is almost yesterday. Freedom is where you find it. I want more of it. Shit, who wouldn’t!

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