Go to the Mall

My high school biology teacher had an extravagant personality.  He was a militant environmentalist who believed that malls were the devil.  The damage that mall development does to the environment, he felt, is unforgivable.  If ever he was annoyed with one of his entitled, obnoxious high schoolers, he would roll his eyes and groan in his most dramatic and exasperated voice, "Ohhh..why don't you just go to the mall!"

Today I went to the Mall.  Actually, I ran on the Mall, the National Mall.  I am in Washington D.C. this weekend for the wedding of an old high school friend.  The reunion began last night when I got together with good old friends for drinks.  I can't remember the last time I got "home" after midnight.  For the first time I can remember in recent history, I didn't set my alarm, and I looked forward to sleeping late...for me.

My eyes opened at 6AM.  Pathetic, isn't it.  I hung around for a bit and finally headed out for my morning training run.  Staying just blocks away from the White House, I ran past the Obama residence and headed for the National Mall.

There was something surreal about running past the icons of our national identity.  It was still early and, for a major city, relatively quiet.  I was transported back 10 years.  I started running seriously in 2001 and participated in my first marathon the the month after 9/11.  I was living in Manhattan at the time.  I saw the smoke out my apartment window.  I smelled the burning rubble.  I read the dozens of missing person notices posted on the bus stop shelters and in the subways.  "Have you seen.....?  Please call...."  I heard the sirens.  I proudly wore a NYFD hat.  I became one with New York and New Yorkers.  Suddenly I started waving to familiar strangers I saw on practically every morning run along the Hudson, and they started waving back.  And through it all, running was my one constant, my rock, my source, my comfort, my reason.

Today, running on the Mall past the Washington Monument, seeing the planes flying overhead and remembering how vulnerable we sometimes are, I remembered how powerful running can be.  Feeling my feet gentry roll over the earth below me and hearing the sound of my labored breathing I am forced to recall that I am still alive.  

I am...

So I must run...