River Run

I usually try and cover a bunch of topics all in one post, so for this one, I'll switch it up and just give you something I wrote this afternoon about running:

 

My classes are over. My lunch of lentils is digested. The sun is still out. It’s time for my afternoon river run. I’ve gone through all my clean running shorts, so I take some from the hamper and try not to notice yesterday’s sweat lingering on them. I run down the marble staircase of the apartment and am greeted by my own shadow as I open the door. It’s the time of day when the sun melts down and every street becomes cloaked in elongated shadows.

The workers tearing down the building next door whistle at me in that typical way for the second time today. When I catch one of them in the eyes and stare without smiling, he looks away and rubs the dirt off his hammer.

I run across the street to the beat of “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” in my ears and continue over the mosaics that make up the walkway Carrera de la Virgen, dodging  middle-schoolers on their way home and painters at their easels. The older women I pass are not afraid to gaze coldly my way: back in their day, girls didn’t run in shorts and T-shirts. I ignore them, seeing no reason to sweat and suffer, the way many Spaniards do, in full-body running gear.

I pretend my music is too loud to hear the noises that men make at me as I pass by, which sound something like strangled birds trying to sing. Why they make these noises is beyond me—never once have I seen it work on a girl. Maybe they can’t help but emit sound when they spot females, similar to the way bullfrogs do in mating season. I’m enjoying the breeze playing with the hairs I missed shaving my knees—why should I cover them just to avoid animalistic men and old-fashioned women? I turn my attention towards the river, Rio Genil, which is thin as a puddle in parts but on its surface I can make out the cottage-dotted mountains in the distance.

Locals are gathered for lunch outside Las Titas. They sit around circular tables, sipping coffee and smoking while children and dogs scurry around their feet. A blur of their Spanish conversation greets me as I run past.

I stop and stretch at an underpass covered in graffiti. I loosen my hamstrings while staring at a massive, spray-painted portrait of a young man. He looks lonely. No, mainly content. But a little lonely. I wonder if he’s based on a real person or straight from the artist’s imagination. Maybe a combination of the two.

I retrace my steps and see the two power-walking women I passed in the same place yesterday, very intent on wherever it is they’re going. I stop at the exercise park to give my arms a taste of a workout, and then I face a middle-aged woman on a two-person swaying machine. I can’t decide what’s less awkward: looking at her or looking everywhere but at her. “This is fun,” I say in Spanish, even though it’s not. She agrees, and we have nothing left to say. The screeches of the machines are the only sound. Finally, she leaves. I watch the mountains move with me, side to side, like seasick giants.

Continuing home, I pass the construction workers for the sixth time today and inhale the earthy smell of the building getting uprooted, a smell that brings back summer, mud puddles, clay on kilns, and being covered in sweat.

Back inside, I gulp down an orange, not minding the juice that covers my cheeks, take out my journal, and begin to write what I just wrote.