Training for the LA marathon continues to go really well, with the addition now of a regular hill workout with Team in Training mentor Tiffany. In Long Beach, there are no more challenging hills than at Signal Hill. The one-mile loop that Tiffany has mapped out is a great balance between the work of the steep climb, and the grace of the long, winding descent.
As challenging as the hill climb is, the view and perspective from the top is so worth the journey. The broad ocean gilded in the morning sun; Catalina floating effortlessly in the sea; Palos Verdes reaching unapologetically for the heavens. All is right in the world.
I have to say that I take a certain amount of pride in being able to almost keep up with someone approaching half my age. Almost. With the quiet confidence of the powerful runner, she pushed out ahead at the peak of the last climb. With the “wisdom” of my greater years, I knew better than to push myself as hard as it would take to keep up. Another day!
I wondered how my Thursday morning run would be after those steep hills, and was delighted to find that my calves and quads were both still strong and moving easily. My Thursday runs along the L.A. river have a unique quality about them, for at about 5 a.m. in the morning, the city crews are driving the length of the river and spray painting over all the graffiti that has collected over the previous week—and that can be a lot, believe me.
There’s plenty to be said about graffiti, and I’m not going to repeat it. As I see it, we’ve been at it since pre-history. In my day, it consisted mostly of carving names in trees. Toby loves Chiara (a high school crush). That kind of thing.
I will be bold and say this, in and of itself, as a medium, I am not entirely against graffiti.
Recently, Marie Deary held an evening at Long Beach’s premier independent bookstore, Shore Books, on the theme of graffiti, to highlight a new book, Graffiti L.A. As I browsed the book a few days later, I noticed that the vast majority of North American graffiti is simply tags—individuals painting their chosen name in a variety of different styles, colors, and designs. Many of them are quite striking. But just names. Back to carving on trees in a sense.
Now there is a kind of graffiti that adds to the conversation. You think not? I encourage you to explore the work of my fellow Brit, Banksy. That’s a piece of his work at the start of the article (I bet you wondered what that was doing there!). I’ll be talking more about him on another day. I’m wiling to go toe to toe with anyone and advocate that this guy is an artist.
Anyway, on my L.A. river run, it’s all name tagging that I see. Tags for individuals and gangs. When the city crews come by, they photograph the tags to pass on to those tracking gang activity in the LBC, and then spray over them. The taggers come back; the city comes back. Ad infinitum, it seems. They keep each other employed.
This kind of graffiti does annoy me. It seems so purposeless. So ego-centric. So “I am here.” I call it “cock waving;” nothing more, nothing less. As I ran yesterday morning, I used a powerful tool of exploration as part of my running meditation. The practice almost always energizes me, and I noticed that I was clocking miles in just under seven minutes, quick for me.
The tool is a question I learned in the University of Santa Monica’s Graduate Programs in Spiritual Psychology, and it goes like this: If my outer experience is a reflection of my inner reality, what could this experience be showing me?
Gently, birthed in the rhythm of my seven-minute miles, the answer appeared.
I realized that the graffiti is just like the negative thinking that I can subject myself to. Or the negativity of others that I buy into. News stories for example. The gangsters of fear, worry, and doubt that run amok in my mind sometimes, especially when I am not paying attention. I throw self-defeating graffiti up on the screen of my own consciousness and stare at it. I can’t . . .; Life is unfair; I’ll never be able to . . . Etc, etc.
Only a conscious choice to intervene can make a difference—and I paint over it with a more positive focus. The fear returns, my choice paints over it. They, too, keep each other employed.
One of my New Year intentions is to get out of this game of back and forward. To transform the landscape of my own consciousness so that graffiti no longer features in it. I will no longer battle against fear. That game is done. I simply look for, create, and see the beauty of life inside me and outside of me. I will be master of my own domain!
Time and again, I meet runners who say to me, “I wish I could feel during the rest of my day the way I do when I am running. You can. In fact, you must! It is the responsibility that comes with the joy of running. How is this done? Approach the rest of your day in the same way that you approach your run.
Prepare. Decide where you are going. Plot a course for your day. Pace yourself. Feed yourself along the way, physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Create for yourself the time you need. Return home in gratitude. Running doesn’t stop with the end of your workout. You just change clothes and course.
Happy trails!
