Ran Away from Freedom

For miles yesterday I ran. I ran away from my to-do lists and piles of laundry. It’s so freeing to watch the world from a pair sneakers, never know what tidbits of life you can see from the pavement. The stories about the couples holding hands, the dogs walking their owners, the strollers being pushed by twentysomethings in maturity clothing, laughing together. Enjoying a moment they're never aware I’m sharing with them, but only for a second, until they're out of sight and behind me.

Viridian camouflage, unmistakable and identifiable from an airport, grocery store aisle, or the front page of the newspaper. The thick material soaked in variations of greens and tans, like a habit to a nun, concealing the body to hide it of its humility, or more likely when it’s a woman, her feminity.

With the bulky boots and stoic expressions, there might as well have had a botox booth set up for the returning army. Underneath the helmet I see eyes looking out to the bodies of civilians that have come to support the troops, arriving in their minivans, with toddles crying and bulky jackets. I’m at 16th and Wynkoop in Downtown Denver and there is a small group of soldiers and a smaller group of citizens, some PR attempt to bring the world back together. The soldiers and the audience are trying to make conversation, polite chatter consisting on anything other than the obvious.

One pair of eyes shadowed by the brim of a helmet catch mine as I run by. I feel guilty that I don’t stop, that I don’t wave, that instead of making eye contact I turn up my ipod and sprint farther away. Running from the eyes that have witnessed a world I cannot even imagine.

The November sunset makes the air chillier and suddenly the warmth of the afternoon has left and my pace is quickened against the gravel. My legs are fatigued and my lungs angry at the altitude. And even though the reality check of soldiers returning home from war is blocks away, I'm not ready to return to my quiet apartment. The soldiers now healed from the shrapnel wounds, the lacerations so horrific, leaving veterans strapped in wheel chairs, those are courageous ones. The ones I want to run up and hug and cry and thank for their strength and endurance. But right now I don't want to. I’m tired.

I reach out at every opportunity I get. I know this. I met a woman in an airport in Austin, she was taking her boots off at the metal detector and I tapped her shoulder, “I don’t know you, but I admire you,” is what I said. She had been deployed several weeks after delivering a baby girl. Can you imagine leaving an infant to powdered milk and instead of rocking and singing lullubyes, hauling a machine gun around the Middle East?

Whenever I see the uniform of patriotism I wince. A bit of guilt for not volunteering as often as I should, a bit of pride to be a native of the same country, but I mostly wince because I don’t want to understand the pain they know, they have felt and that will torture them. I prefer to run far away from the news stations and reality that our world isn’t really the dogs, and strollers and couples laughing over triple vent lattés, it’s a world outside our fictious peaceful American walls. A world where suffering is the norm and people’s only chance for freedom is running away....