Sinnerman

6:35am.

Cotton candy clouds look sleepy. I’m up before my alarm. The sun peeks above the horizon on Camps Bay and light casts a shadow over Twelve Apostles. I stand on Victoria Road in my sports bra and spandex pants. Waves crash on the rocks. No one else is up.

I hold onto a metal fence and swing my legs. It’s a fence that separates the Atlantic Ocean from the sidewalk. My hips loosen up. They say stretching your body is important. I pull my knee up and hamstrings toward my chest. It’s the hottest morning in weeks. My face already feels warm. It’s the start to a golden morning in Cape Town. The start to my first 30 minute run in four months.

Last spring, I broke my femur. Injury left me with only time to idolize running. A feeling, a movement, a satisfaction I craved. Craved it in my sleep. Now 120 days later, the doctor cleared me to put one foot in front of the other. Start to run.

Legs feel bouncy. Mind feels heavy.

It’s hard to return to the physical practice of running. It’s harder to run without thinking when it is easy. I run further. Self doubt and nostalgia get louder. Minutes go by.

Remember when you ran twice a day? For an hour or more? Remember what it felt like to run with a clear head? Less whining? When is this run over?

Inhale. Lungs tighten. My breath releases. The exhale is louder than the sound of the tide crashing on Clifton 3rd Beach.

Breathing pattern is chaotic. Footsteps scrape the sidewalk. Pavement scoffs in agony. Soles of feet slap the ground.

Hate these sounds. Stranger to my own body. Hate these feelings. Shadow of where I used to be.

I stop the run. iPhone jumps out from the zipper pocket in my spandex. I do not normally rely on music. Injury makes me feel mortal. Spotify app opens. “Bread & Roses” playlist shuffles. The remix to Nina Simone’s ‘Sinnerman’ plays.

“Oh, sinnerman, where you gonna run to? Sinnerman where you gonna run to?

But the rock cried out

I can’t hide you, the rock cried out I can’t hide you, the rock cried out I ain’t gonna hide you there

All on that day”

School buses pass. Eyes of children judge my lumpy stride. Do not look up. Focus on my form. Tighten my core. Loosen my arms. Relax my shoulders.

Man wears a blue sweat suit and black backpack. Silhouette is in the corner of my eye. He runs next to me with silent footsteps. His pace is quick. Lithe. Controlled. Supernaturally swift.

Already passed me.

My eyes dart to the back of his stride. I lock onto the rhythmic pattern of his sneaker soles. All I see is the bottom of his shoes, between strides. I watch the melody of his elbow tips. His bones swing, like pendulums.

I squint my eyes and can not read what his backpack logo says. There is about 15 meters between us. My attention returns to body. Quad muscles groan. Breath thickens. Click up the volume. Nina plays in my ears.

Legs pick up the tempo. They work hard. Work hard even when they are tired. Headphones go. Arms return to the natural beat to my stride. Momentum builds. Distance shrinks.

Pass the bus stop at Clifton 1st Beach. Catch him on the next turn.

“What’s the matter with you rock?

Don’t you see I need you, rock?”

Can not see what he looks like. Gaze stays up ahead. Skip first impressions. Do not ask what his name is. Do not ask where he is from.

“How many miles are you going?” “Miles? I’m running to work.”

Does not have a GPS watch. Does not track splits. Neither do I. Hold the same pace. Trade small talk for synchrony. We pump our moving arms and moving legs through Bantry Bay.

Run in silence. Analogous parts to a bigger machine. Hold an image we hope to exist in. Feels right. Fast pace of our legs and slow pace of our conversation is a satisfaction for living in a complicated city.

He talks. Runs because “it’s his passion.” Does not get to choose why. “It’s for no one to see, or take, and in the stillness of the morning, I’m at peace.” Repeat what he says. Make sure I hear him correctly. “It makes my mind quiet. It keeps the bad thoughts down.”

Want to remember his words. Not what I feel. Traffic is busy on the pier in Sea Point. Hard to understand broken English. “You can’t out run emotion because they’re not outside. You can’t run from you. You can deal with them this way.”

Do not want to accidentally project thoughts onto him. Like most interactions.

Hit the Promenade. Tells me to push the turns. Calls them ‘ropes.’ Sounds more like a demand than a suggestion. Do not tell him the part where I haven’t ‘picked it up’ since April.

Follow his command. Stress fractures be damned.

Stay in step with him. You can be anything you want to be right now.

Feel pretty good. Do not know why I am empowered by silhouette’s words of encouragement. But I trust him. Want to be as great as he thinks. Do not want to let him down. Do not want to let myself down.

Pump my arms with ferocity. Steady my breath.

Stay within your body. Focus on this turn.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Pick up your legs.

Tangible cues. Weight of my doubts, insecurity and callousness fall. Back inside an element I have not been in for so long. Steady. Confident. Unafraid. Face this together. All I need to transcend my internal dialogue. Pain. Frustration.

“I can tell you’re a good runner. You know how to compete. You have an edge.”

Lactic acid in my legs tells me thirty minutes almost here. Can not resist the temptation to run with him. Energy of another runner. I do not want to ruin the power we have stride for stride. Infinite. Without judgment. A fleeting feeling. Timex watch beeps. 30:00. Lucky to last this long. No ache in femur.

Immortality slips away. Slow down. Ask for his name. He reaches out a hand.

“Felix. I work over there.” Points to the bar across the street. Tells me to come by at night. “I don’t have a lot of friends. I like it better that way though.” Flirt with the idea of going with a friend.

Ruin this moment. Drift into the future. Think about being the girl at the counter of a bar, who speaks to him on the other side. Bring our age, gender and skin color in post-apartheid South Africa when I walk in. Selfish maybe. Want to remember him in the purest way possible. Day dream cuts short. Soon, becomes a memory.

Turn to face him. Do not step inside the bar to recognize our differences. Brought to my attention in a way I can not turn away from. Felix is blind in his right eye. Bores scars. Embossed brush strokes across his cheeks. First time I see him beyond a shadow. Stare at a white emptiness in the space where his pupil used to be. Freeze.

Felix, unaware. Speaks with a gentle kindness. Gaze is full of gratitude.

“Oh, sinnerman, where you gonna run to?

Sinnerman where you gonna run to?”

How did he get his scars?

How did he become blind in his eye?

Where was running from?

Why did he ask me to the bar?

Imagination runs wild. Separated so much. Overwhelmed with everything I do not know. Want to go back to the moment when we run. All I rely on, intuition.

Stand on the boardwalk. Give him a hug to end my spiraling train of thoughts. Catch a glimpse of something beyond complaints from being out of shape.

Anxiety that picks out our differences, quiets. A feeling more singular than I expect, arises. Weight of my assumptions disappear. Sense a mutual understanding.

“Eyes without speaking confess the secrets of the heart.” Ripped a cliche quote out of a National Geographic last week.

“All on that day

So I run to the river

It was bleeding’, I run to the sea”