I ran in the cemetery at lunch today.  And I tried to audioblog my run.  My slant was to be: I have often blogged about running in the cemetery, and I have often blogged wireless from the cemetery right after a run, but finally the ultimate: blogging while running via a phone-initiated audioblog.  I tried.  But I couldn’t run and dial the numbers and codes on my cellphone with any precision.  So I said: fuck it.  And just ran instead.

And I just ran again tonight.  But harder.  Much harder than a run that results from the previous manner of just saying ‘fuck it’. 

Earlier this evening, I had a proposition planted in my mind and thought by hard running to burn it clear of any clinging detritus.  What proposition?  Hardly believable.  First a blind kiss from behind on my cheek.  Followed by my surprised “Hey, What do you have in mind?”, answered by my acquaintance’s “I’ll do anything you want to do.”  Which led to small talk at a table.  But not small for long as she revealed to me: “I found my lover with another woman yesterday.”  Of course,  I queried her long enough to discover that she had stopped over ‘his place’ unexpectedly last night and discovered the ‘two of them together’.  But most damningly, when she walked in, he was only in his underwear.  End of affair.

In response to her opening up like this, I was in the midst of offering what comfort I could from a man’s perspective, most naturally, when she grabbed my bicep firmly and said: “I want you to be my rebound.  Make love to you and forget about him. You'll be my rebound.”  

I did not blush.  I did not cringe.  I knew I had her, if I wanted her, and stared deep into her eyes.  And looking at her, I thought: “What man about wouldn’t want this needy, 22 year-old, highly intelligent, flowering blond fox?”  Yet, in response to my self-posed question, one word came as an answer: Freedom.  She didn’t really need me.  She needed a release, a gate to find her own freedom.  Not a one-night stand.  Not a relationship-stand-in.  But some time, distance, and healing to put what WAS before last night behind her.   And though infused with a moment of mutual desire, I felt this-her real need.  And saw her genuine fulfillment transcending any immediate passionate involvement with me.  So, to put it delicately, I ‘let her off the hook’ that she had snagged herself on.  Damn me.  And tossed her back into a gentler ocean of, hopefully, healing emotion.  Even as she declared that she was going consequently to "forget it all' while partying with a girlfriend later tonight.

And I ended up, instead, an hour later running.  Running with that very same spirit of freedom, I believe, she was seeking.  Thus running, perhaps, tandem by spiritual synchronicity, yet nevertheless alone.  Thus always alone.  And always running.