Footsteps

Back in the day, I used to annoy my father with what I believed was a very incisive question: "What are you running from, Dad?" As the guy who set me to running in the first place, I figured I would be probing his inner psyche and deepest torments. What demons were pursuing him as he rambled up and down the hills near his cabin in the woods? What voices did he hear as he worked to exorcise the pain from his life?
He gave me a pained look and tried to imagine what I could possibly mean. To him, life seemed pretty straight-forward, even though there had been a divorce and estrangement from his family. Dad wasn't interested in deeper meanings. He wondered aloud what I hoped that he would answer.
I hoped I would find an answer to why things had gotten so horribly messed up. He had to know what that answer was - maybe not on the surface, but certainly at his core. That answer was certain to appear as his head cleared and the endorphins began to surge. "What are you running from, Dad?" If he did know, he never said.
Last night when I got home, the rain was just starting, and I was being as non-committal as the precipitation about going out for a run. I sat down at my desk, ready to give the day a miss. I promised myself that I would catch up later. I told my wife that a younger me would have been out in the rain, stomping through puddles and dragging the dog along behind. There was a moment of absolute quiet - rare in my house - and I pushed back from my desk and went to go strap on my running shoes.
I know what he was running from: He was running from the moment when he can no longer run. It's not as dire or oppressive as it sounds. It's a matter of momentum. An object at rest tends to stay at rest. An object in motion tends to stay in motion. My father's motion, chaotic as it was in those later years was constant. That makes sense to me.