I went running today. No, not fitspo (a term I have recently learnt thanks to Instagram hashtags.) I realized I hadn't gone running since I cut bangs, a random fact that hit me when my hair started bouncing on my forehead. Bedhead and sweating and starting to feel breathless and the burn (which is nasty) and starting to get hungry (which is way more nasty.) I alternately wondered why I'd come out in the first place and why I'd put it off for so long. And then as I crossed the road I hit a narrow stretch lined with trees, my favourite part of my jogging route. Today it was carpeted with buttery yellow leaves which flew up as I ran through them, and danced briefly in the morning sun, like a duet with the neon yellow soles of my running shoes as they flashed together.
Singapore doesn't have four seasons, one of my biggest laments as a child. But we do have a whole spectrum of greens and the peculiarly intense colours of the tropics, which rotate according to our own milder equivalent of seasons. In one of those subtle changes of season, these trees shed red leaves, large, vividly red leaves with only a few freckles of gold or black to mar their brilliance.
They cover the ground like drops of blood, and I half expect them to stain my shoes as I go through them, their colour is so potent.
This is my favourite stretch, and these are my trees. I love rain trees best, of course, but they are so big--like gentle giants--that you feel small, as if they didn't know you were there, loving them, at all. These trees were shorter, slimmer, less gracefully formed, more down to earth, with scars and parasitic vines and galls. I felt that they recognized me and waited for me to come by. We could connect, like friends.
As I reach this stretch, I often find myself slipping into prayer, without even meaning to. It is easy to pray when you are surrounded by trees.
I am not much of a runner. Truth be told, I'm not even sure if I enjoy it. The first half I feel glorious, like a horse; cantering effortlessly with the leaves brushing past my face, and feeling unstoppable with the wind in my mane. The second half--somehow the wind always disappears around this time, and the sun starts to get hot--is just plain sweat and suffering. Feeling like one of those hamsters trying to squeeze out of a hand, eyes popping, blind and deaf to everyone and everything else but getting there. I'm still not sure what I think of running.
I run simply to keep fit, not because I'm any good at it. I run the same jogging track every time, content to revisit my trees and memorize the waiting time of each traffic light, and not even know how many km I've covered. I run in misleading top quality dri-fit marathon shirts from a friend whose passion is long distance running. They deceive the people seeing those impressive '12/24 km,' 'Standard Chartered,' 'Sundown Marathon' etc labels into thinking far more of me than they should. Perhaps I ought to feel guilty.