my senior year of college. When I lived in New York I played ultimate frisbee in Central Park every day. I climb rocks and mountains, I ski, I surf. I don’t stand on a makeshift stage in hotel ballrooms, smile blankly, and wave.
Fuck him.
I got a job at MTV Sports after I got out of the Peace Corps and I loved it. I produced shows about extreme athletes, shows that took me all over the country, all over the world. I filmed motocross racers and skydivers and cliff divers and skateboarders. I trekked across an Arizona desert for three weeks, shooting a guy who runs forty miles a day barefoot for fun. I filmed guys climbing mountains on bicycles and fighting crocodiles with their bare hands. And along the way I participated in most of it. I jumped out of an airplane with a parachute, off a mountaintop with a bungee cord, and over a Volkswagen on a motorcycle. I walked on hot coals, collected honey from a swarming hive of bees, and swam with a great white shark. It all seems like it was so long ago, a different lifetime, but it wasn’t. Come to think of it, the swim with the shark was this year on this island. I’m still that girl, I just took a little break from myself.
Fuck him.
The sky was impossibly blue and there was no sign of a cloud anywhere. It was one of those perfect days you only get in Hawaii, that wonderful kind of hot only the islands can provide. As I broke a sweat, my legs settled into a very comfortable gait. I don’t remember ever feeling so loose or so strong. Every step was freeing, every breath invigorating. There was no strain, no fatigue, no pain, just the rhythmic beating of my heart accompanied by the crashing waves on the beach. Overhead, gulls were singing and in the distance a Polynesian song was playing. It was the most peaceful, perfect, beautiful, Zen experience I have ever had. I was fully one with the sky and the sea and the earth. And with every step I took and every beat of my heart, I heard the same words in my head, again and again.
Fuck him.
I haven’t any idea how much time passed as I ran; I would have run forever, but eventually my body needed fuel. I could feel it begin to cry out for water, for food, and I remembered I hadn’t eaten any breakfast at all. The timing was perfect, as I was approaching what appeared to be a gorgeous hotel, so I just ran straight in through the front doors, through the lobby, and found a restaurant out by the swimming pool. I wasn’t even breathing heavily as I asked for a menu. I wanted the healthiest food they had, the healthiest food imaginable. I felt as though I wanted to eat the earth.
“May I have fresh fruit, please,” I asked a very pleasant waiter who came to take my order, “and nuts if you have them, and granola, and lots of cold water.”
“Will this be a room charge?” he asked.
“No, I’m not staying in this hotel.”
He asked where I was staying and I told him, and then I asked how far apart the hotels were.
“I’m not sure exactly, miss,” he said. “I can get the exact distance if you’d like.”
“If it isn’t too much trouble.”
A moment later he was back with the most beautiful plate I’ve ever seen, a huge platter piled high with ripe grapefruit, pineapple, berries, and assorted other explosively colorful treats.
“I asked at the desk,” he told me as I sank my teeth into a mango. “They say it is about eighteen miles from your hotel.”
I finished chewing and looked up at him.
“Excuse me?” I said.
“Eighteen miles,” he repeated. “That’s what they said. How long did it take you to drive here?”
“I didn’t drive,” I said, “I ran.”
“Wow, pretty long run,” he said, “nice way to start the day. Enjoy your lunch.”
Lunch? I thought.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Almost noon, miss.”
I had been running for three hours.
“Thank you very much,” I said.
I devoured everything on that platter and loved every bite of it. I ate berries and figs and raisins, almonds and walnuts and macadamia nuts, mango and pineapple and coconut, and I drank a pitcher of ice water, then asked for another and finished that one as well. When I was done, I leaned back in my chair and let the sun bathe