Running thoughts

I was running this gravel, industrial loop in our town (a great idea executed as tastelessly as possible) and I had a sensory memory moment remembering that swift and heavy sensation that buzzes through you when you lock eyes with someone and realize you're both seeing past social norms and distractions (clothing, surrounding, physical and psychological contexts) to an all-revealing, mystery-solved snap of utter comprehension. Clean doors and shit, Man. Yogis meditate to similar levels of consciousness, Emerson referred to it has being sucked up into an all-seeing transparent eyeball.* It leaves faster than it came, and there may be no way to explain or even fully acknowledge the overwhelmingly robust swell of contentment, that blinks out so quickly you half doubt it ever happened. Sex leaves a wet spot or two, but has similar "did that really happen?" qualities. Close emotional proximity doesn't catalyze these chance occurrences - they are best experienced between two people who know nothing of one another. This allows limitless contexts - the look of understanding just before you leave the bar with someone you don't really know, a long, shared look of profound sexual longing through a window as the train pulls away from the platform - and is born of raw, universal coincidence ruled by timing immeasurable to our best rubrics.

Whatever anyone decides it is nor isn't, it's something I haven't felt in a while with another human being, there's no guarantee I ever will again. It's a rare thing, yet to go without it feels like deprivation, malnutrition. On a less general, more personal level, I often associate it with casual sex and less "serious" parts of my life and times. It's not exactly the sex itself I miss, it's the mystery and newness of a stranger (one whose ways are not known by me, not some random dude in line at the hot dog vendor) - not an easily replicated sensation. If I believed in heaven or a perfect state, it would probably be that feeling prolonged into eternity.

That's what I think about when I run (when I'm not thinking about how my chest cavity is buckling and death imminent.)

* I does love me some transparent eyeball. There. I said it.