EPT***
The last time I closed the door behind me like this, I had serious doubts whether I should be leaving. My parents had just been in a rather nasty "argument" - though not so much an argument than a sudden, fierce confrontation. I was no stranger to this scenario; I had seen it play out a hundred times. In this instance, I picked up my father from work, in a nasty mood that I had no clue about. He sat down, ready to eat dinner, when my mom made a comment about him doing something to help prepare the table. He quickly flipped out, becoming frighteningly hostile, catching both of us off guard. My mom was greatly hurt and left the house. I sat and ate dinner with my dad, ate my mother's food she had spent the previous hour preparing laboriously, which she was now unable to enjoy herself. We sat in total silence. After he had finished, my dad went to the living room, and sat on the couch to watch TV. A bit later, my mom returned, and sat herself at the table, forced to eat the cold remaining leftovers of the meal she had made. The tension in the room (connected rooms) was heavy. I had been planning to do some exercise after dinner anyway, so I decided to head out.
That was the last time anyway. I had been wondering whether I was doing the right thing. Thoughts flashed into my mind that I might return from my run to find that someone had snapped for good and burned down my house, or maybe caused some really serious domestic abuse. Not that there had been such a precedent, but I knew things were sometimes held together by only a very delicate strand. When I was younger, I decided to leave such matters in the hands of adults, and let them resolve their own conflicts rather than get in the way and complicate things or make them worse. But at what point am I held responsible to really take some action and step in to mediate the conflict? Surely at some point I must have matured into a family member with enough influence to make a difference in how these events played out. A stunning parallel can now be drawn to the other "caught in the middle" moment I wrote about here.
And that was the last time I had went for my run around the local park. Fortunately, when I returned home, nothing was in too askew; it looked like the two of them had not spoken a word to each other, which was in fact the best case scenario, for there was no doubt that any sort of communication under that tension would only have drawn more explosions. Some of you may criticize my seeming lack of care or compassion; how could a son be so cold, distant, and uncaring? To say I did not care would be silly - the problem was that this aloofness I had developed was so ingrained in my being that this was my instinctual coping mechanism. But I fully understand that that is how it would appear to someone else.
Those events transpired less than a week ago. This time, when I closed the door behind me for my run, I did not have to worry about similar problems. Lately I had been doing exercise very frequently; just this morning, I had woken up early and took a bike ride. I swam, ran, biked, stretched, push ups and sit ups and did random flailing about in the basement where no one could see me throughout the week. My routines were highly unstructured and based purely on instinct feel. I must say, I am proud of the results. But the sad truth was, no one else could be privy to this amazingly sculpted, fit, piece of work, for wasn't that pretty much most of the point of it? Perhaps the time to show off will come some day, and maybe that was one of the drivers that inspired me.
It was night and I did not wear my glasses. My vision is quite terrible, and this compounded with the darkness of night made my route somewhat precarious indeed. I did not wear glasses because the sweat would make them slippery and slip off. The cool night air was the perfect weather, after the hot temperature it had been earlier today. I reached a long, straight stretch that would be the darkest leg of my route. Hints of fear began creeping up in the back of my mind. I knew this was probably not the safest activity to be doing in my current state of blind running in the dark. I half expecting a monster to leap out of the edge of the forest to my immediate left at any time. Soon my mind was taken off this trepidation by the sound of fireworks, and I was reminded that Victoria Day celebrations were about. I suspect the proper day to launch fireworks is actually tomorrow, but really, what difference did it matter?
I ran towards the sound of the fireworks. There were multiple sources, and I looked up to see which one would be most spectacular to watch. I looked up and saw the bright white light of the moon directly overhead, in front of me. I am actually a big fan of the moon, and make an effort to gaze and bask in its glow whenever I have the chance. Mysterious and far away, yet always there and taunting with riddles. Looking through eyes with severe astigmatism, the moon appeared to be an array of bulbs. As I approached a hill, I could finally see the fireworks display, launched from a family evidently sitting atop the hill. Of course, I could not see anyone up there - I could hardly see what was on the road 2 metres in front of me. But I heard the sound of a family's delight, children's laughter, playing, and their enjoyment of this not often available spectacle. The display was not overly magnificent, just singular red and green sparks sent up into the sky. But the atmosphere seemed simply magical. My path took me around this hill, and I turned my head as I ran to take in the show. Finally I was past and running back the other way. The white moon, the jumping sparks of fire, and the yellow blanket of streetlights at ground level, all blended together into one memory. As I headed back home, the sounds were behind me now. I was breathless, panting, and imagined I was running away from exploding shells under the cover of night. How very exciting. Not everyone would appreciate such a scene, but for someone living under a pretense of poetic sentiments, I felt I had to record this surreal experience.
