Hadn’t jogged in . . . years. Horrible foot injury way back when. But my compulsion for the honed, rippling 100-pound male body, coupled with my woods lust, impelled me into the forest. I daringly jogged over the fatal, uneven terrain of the equestrian path. I live on the edge, baby.
Those tony middle-aged suburban women with their quarter horses had nothing on me, the ultimate global trekker. But I was afraid of jogging. I’d broken the bone in my foot and severed the ligament in so many creative ways:
- Basketball? Four times.
- Falling down flights of steps while drinking? Unknown # of times
- Falling off a bar I was dancing on it sober (no shit)? Once
My ankle seemed congenitally condemned to twist like Elvis’s previously censored hips. So jogging through these woods was a big and silly risk. But trot I did.
And as I pranced, I imagined turning my bones, and I was scared. But the message on the church marquee I’d driven past the night before whispered to me: Relax. God’s still in charge.
I decided on a novel idea, the last solution that occurs to a human: Trust. Then a message arrived in my mind, from my mind, kind of like when you leave yourself an email. The message was this: Be alert, but don’t be afraid. There’s a difference between awareness and fear, isn’t there? Awareness means, well, awareness. It means heightened senses, keener conclusions, muscles more taught, not more tense. I jogged past a cottontail, which spotted me from beneath its fern. The rabbit didn’t bolt. It was aware, like the white-tailed deer browsing a hundred yards beyond. The rabbit froze like a downed branch, so still, inscrutable, glassine eyes holding my darting image until I loped out of some langomorphically-detectable range of danger. The deer and the rabbit, their ears pricked, awaiting, aware. But they didn’t seem afraid. Their hours occupied by vigilance; if they were always afraid, their lives would be unbearable. And they live with more risk than I. There’s a difference between worry and concern. Worry is praying to yourself. It’s living in the wreckage of the future. Concern is rational concern without worry.
To be aware is to be present, to rise above ordinary consciousness. To be frightened is to lose consciousness, to lose self, and self-possession. It’s to give myself away to the object of my fear, and to lose the ability to choose.
All the fear left me. I no longer had that excruciating motion picture of a rolled ankle in my racing mind. That image had seemed almost as baleful as the real, raw deal. I felt like I flew, as if I soared over the downed, mossy logs, like the green and umber woods moved through me. Well, not really. But at least I wasn’t imagining torn ligaments anymore.
My eyes scanned the soggy path for rocks and uneven patches and above all, horseshit. Awareness is investment, mental investment, in the here and now. It’s not cockiness. It’s balance.
When I’m afraid, I secretly attract the object of my fear, since the mind increases whatever it focuses on it. Think about it: when you focus a pair of binoculars on an object, the image becomes bigger.
Awareness has a guardian-like quality. It says: Move forward, and observe.
Just then, on that lime green day of oppressive must, the kind where gleeful jays screech and fungi hug the undercarriages of fallen things, just then I ran out of woods. I stood at the edge of a screaming highway and panted. I’d lasted. I didn’t have to be afraid of the what-if’s again.
© 2022 by Michael C. Just
Mike’s novel, The Dirt: The Journey of a Mystic Cowboy, is available in softcover or eBook formats through Amazon.
You can purchase the book through this website. Or go straight to amazon at https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+dirt+journey+of+a+mystic+cowboy&crid=1S40Q4BXSUWJ6&sprefix=the+dirt%3A+journey+of+a+m%2Caps%2C180&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_23
Mike’s other titles, including The Crippy, The Mind Altar, and Canyon Calls, are available through this website or through Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B002
Four of his short stories have recently been published online:
Lies, Ltd. has been published by The Mystery Tribune @ Lies, Ltd.: Literary Short Fiction by Michael C. Just (mysterytribune.com)
The Obligate Carnivore has been published by the Scarlet Leaf Review @ Category: MICHAEL JUST – SCARLET LEAF REVIEW
I See You, Too has been published by the 96th of October @ I See You, Too – 96th of October
Offload, a short story about a man who can heal any disease, is now live and can be read at The Worlds Within at Offload – The Worlds Within