I went running today and blanked out, lost track of time. This is the first time this has happened since I started running again two months ago. It wasn't for very long- just 5 or 10 minutes, but it was real and it was good. One second I had reached the midway of my run, where I turn back home, and the next I was halfway back to the mouth of the forest, running towards the fork in the path that led to the meadow...I lost all track of who and where I was, forgot the nagging ache in my knee, the problems at work, the evolving relationship with my partner.
This happened often in Kagoshima; I would lose myself for half an hour or more. I would come to and realise that I couldn't remember that hill, or couldn't remember that slope. On a few occasions I lost the entire run, fininished it without any memory of it at all. Once I was jolted out of my reverie by the sight of a large monkey, a big male, as it scooted across the path in front of me. I remember that, remember being nowhere and then being suddenly on the road again, feeling my body and watching that bloody monkey.
I was always most restful and most content when I came out of these trances, happy about my body and about my mind, but it is a little creepy. What is my mind doing at this time? Surely it is doing something: the brain produces thoughts like the liver produces bile. What is it thinking about when it is not me?
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