Inadequately packed a swag, stumbled across the threshold, shouted a triumph over your shoulder, pinned your ears back and just ran. Eyes open, but rage or fear or love or desperation blinding any registered sight. You may have been pre-adolescent or post-university or in the twighlight of a cancer grip. Maybe it was after the third child was born, or just before the wife came back from the nail salon. Perhaps you were right, perhaps you should have stayed to fight your corner, perhaps it would have gotten better. Perhaps destiny chose your need to escape or maybe a deficiency in your character informed your selection. You may have left a note, your may have tried your hardest to close the French-Doors without emitting a sound or maybe you violently smashed that vase his mum gave to him on your way out, using the explosion of Mexican Glass to serve as the exclamation point to finish your rant.
Have you ever run away?
I have. Many times. I haven't for years now, but for most of my adolescent years I ran. I never had anywhere to go. I never had anywhere I wanted to go. It was never about the destination, but about escaping the origin. Sometimes I ran just to run. The escape, or the feeling of escape, was enough for me. If I actually reached a pause, or had to take a break to catch my breath up, then my freedom would dissipate. This left me so very unfulfilled by running away. Besides, I’d always eventually end up back to whence I had come from.
I don't run anymore.
It might look like I still do, but I don’t.
I leave. I travel. I disappear unannounced. I go to bed early. I don't call as much. I don't write as honest. I take another job offer. I chase love. I go alone. I arrive unequipped. I ignore the warnings. I take the ultimatum. I call your bluff. I buy the ticket. And, I take the ride.
But I don't run.
There's a difference. It's neither semantic, nor minute, nor perception. There's a clear and conscious distinction. The way how this Blog normally works would require me to postulate upon the points of comparison and highlight their innate disparities. I'm not going to do that. I could and my points, like always, would be strong and prepared to withstand rebuke and rebuttal. But I’m not going to. I don't care to. It will only serve to distract from the question I’m asking you.
Have you ever run away?
Cause to me, it looks like that's exactly what you're doing right now. Well, not this second, whilst I intently observe you flip through that glossy, design magazine. But you are running, aren't you? The way you lean your delicate shoulder against the window of the bus, gives you the air of a disinterested and becalmed commuter. It's an act, girl. I play poker too, and it's an act. Your bluff is too hard, too forced. Your oversize, tan saddlebag is slung down at the base of your seat and barricaded by your slender legs, which are held firm wrapped inside sleek, black tights. Strong image. What's in the bag that you need to protect it so? Dark nail polish sits in chipped splatters across your nails. The colour works for you, but the upkeep, or lack of, does not. You're finer than that, or brought up finer anyways. Though, now that you're running, you don't care for the conventions of your birthright. You need the change; the adjustment towards individualism; the freedom.
Yeah, I’m judging you. Yeah, I don't know you, but I’m judging you. Yeah, I’m not free of sin, but I’m casting the first stone and judging you. Yeah I like your look and will often attach an imagined drama into a fictitious romance, but I'm judging you. Yeah, you're pretending not to notice my gaze, but I’m judging you.
Though you could pass for 27, my guess is that early 20's; real early 20's. You dress old. Older. You want people to think that you're older than your true years. Why is that? If you're going to run, you going to have to go alone. Those that take advantage and those that query are less likely to do so of one who has got a few more years under her belt. Your impossibly hip, so very now, retro, thrift store found, belt. So you dress older. You talk older. You read older. Does it work? Do people give you more latitude? Trust you more? Screw you over a little less? Believe you're not 21? I don't. I also don't see 21 as under-formed, too young, inexperienced. If you have to take responsibility for your actions and words, you should be respected as so. You topped up your own Oyster Card, so you could ride this bus. You raise your own income, pay your own way, purchase your own copies of Wallpaper Magazine. Surely that pushes you into the 'Old Enough' category. Don't worry if 'they' don't see you as old enough. Don't worry that you can't reminisce over the same pop-culture early teenage experiences of those 30-somethings you hang with. You're running - no age requirement required. Just pin your ears back and don't turn around.
I think it was your long dark hair that caught me first. The way it hung straight and heavy around from the back of your neck and draped around over the front of your right shoulder. Just long enough to cover your breast. I like that look. I think it suits your journey. Your run from the West Coast of some country and cross one of the oceans to a foreign land. This is a foreign land to you, isn't it? Oh I see; simply running north, south or east inside the confides of your country of origin wasn't enough. Wasn't far enough. Didn't seem hard enough. You had to go beyond. Pass out and across one border control and into another. Preferably to a land that speaks a language you don't. Yeah, I know I come from the East Coast of a land so very south of here, but I ain't running. Remember? My journey is different. I've already run and already returned, now I’m just me. Just a gypsy. Just travelling and grafting. You, my dear, are running.
Bus stops. She gets off.
I should have asked her where she was running from. She wouldn't have known why she was running - she wouldn't have even known that she actually was running – but she would have been aware of where she was coming from. She wouldn't have known that it's ok to run. That's the way one finds one’s self. Or who you're gonna be up until the next time you run.
I wonder if she's gonna be on this bus tomorrow?
