Timelessness

January 21, 2009

Yesterday, I went for a run on the treadmill at 11 at night. There was no one else in the gym- just me and Bon Jovi. Running is such a mental sport. The minutes just drag on and on at glacier pace when there is nothing to occupy my senses besides my sweaty reflection, but when there is a pair of earphones stuck in my ears, connected to an ipod nano playing “It's My Life (it's now or never!)”, suddenly the minutes melt away reasonably quickly, my energy level shoots up tenfold, and I feel like Rocky training for the big match on the Philadelphia museum steps. Or like Sydney Bristow chasing after an SD-6 foe in her stilettos and ridiculous(ly cool) wig. 

After the run, I stretched outside to something slower and the music made me want to dance, so I did. It was nearly midnight and no one was watching save the few stars winking down from the black sky, so I was free to balancey and pas de bourree, to twirl and leap around with abandon up and down the stairs and curbs and on the smooth asphalt of the parking lot. Sometimes I like to pretend I'm a ballerina. 

Eventually, I pulled myself up over the rails, and onto my balcony, but did not feel like going back inside yet, so I sat on the ledge (where I used to play my guitar during the hot, muggy evenings) holding my knees and listening to Italian opera, so magnificent and melancholy, until my eyes grew heavy with sleep. It was a school night, but I would not get into bed until 2 in the morning- an irresponsible choice, sure, but besides pretending to be a ballerina, I also sometimes like to do things according to the way I feel, and not according to what the clock says I should be doing. What would the world be without clocks? 

My evening without clocks:

Someone else would have been in the gym at 11 at night. People would go running at odd hours of the day instead of thinking it was crazy to be pumping iron or doing cardio in the dead of night. I would have stopped sooner on the treadmill because there would be no clock to justify my mind's claim to my tired body: just one more minute! (which is usually a lie anyway). Perhaps, someone else besides the stars would have been watching from his balcony so I would not feel so free to foolishly pas de bouree away. And I would not have known that I had gone to sleep at an unreasonable hour, only that it was the sleepy hour. My cornbread would not have arrived 30 minutes late for the Obamabash we had earlier that evening. There would be no “earlier” to speak of; there would be no concept of “late”. I would have continued strumming and singing on top of my white dresser in the echoey hallway much longer. Then the cornbread would never have been made in time for the Obamabash, and I would have missed his inaugural speech entirely. I would never be late. Hallelujah!