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Show furtively in hopes that no one would see me eating alone. Lunch and dinner I skipped. Below the earth's surface, in the cinderblock basement of my dormitory, I jumped rope for hours on end. The black metal spring that bound the middle of the spongy rope hissed like a cat each time it came in contact with the concrete floor. Because I was without other military dependents, commissaries, or ports in which to moor, I regulated what I had left, my body, used my only weapon, my legs, and ran. I ran from the "freshman fifteen" and fraternity parties where boys rolled quarters down their noses and laughed as they chugged clear plastic cups full of warm beer. I ran from the hard gray winters of the plains that left me depressed and pining for the sun. I ran from a Greek system that organized mandatory social functions where I had to listen to fraternity pledges sing puerile songs. I ran from the lack of boundaries, borders, and edges and from the fear of sitting still. Far from campus, I ran to neighborhoods where no one knew me and I could be judged by the length of my stride rather than where I was from. Running past the capital and around the state fair grounds, I measured my happiness in terms of mileage and calories burned. Sometimes I still sprinted but usually the sprint was up the ten flights of stairs to my dorm floor and had little to do with surrender and everything to do with the fact that I ate more than an apple for lunch. In the empty stairwell, I could not feel the wind pushing on my body and the only sound I heard was the echo of each footfall. Without the space to find the rhythm of a stride, I could only pound my way to the top. Reaching my room, I recorded another five miles alongside the lettuce I had eaten for lunch. These pieces of paper I kept hidden in my drawer, taking them out at night and counting and recounting the totals, reading them repeatedly as if they were letters from 226 |