Monday: Finding JOY In the Little Things

"The Joy Of Jogging Very Very Slowly"

It’s a great day for the race. The human race. At a contemplative pace.

May 18, 2020

We were knee-deep in quarantine and the television was on. “Andrew Cuomo is talking about running!” I shrieked excitedly to my husband.

“Running for president?”

No. Known for his enjoyment of pickup basketball games and water-skiing, the governor was announcing the relatively safe form of outdoor exercise he planned to take up during the pandemic. I felt a wave of smug solidarity —#NewYorkStrong! — mulling my own daily circumnavigations around Fort Greene Park in Brooklyn. Then came a twinge of conscience, worse than whatever’s going on in my lower back.

For what I have done daily since this whole calamity began cannot fairly be described as “running.” Even “jogging” is, in truth, a bit of a stretch. With palpable scorn, my 12-year-old son calls it: “like, stylish walking” — which, if he were reading the Great Books instead of machine-gunning his pals on multiple screens every waking moment he’s not in a Zoom class, he might synonymize as a “prance” or a “trot.”

Though we’re not talking about racewalking, that oft-mocked Olympic sport and favorite of suburban mall-goers in tracksuits wielding Heavy Hands dumbbells. My feet do leave the ground, and so according to any accredited referee I am jogging. Just very slowly.

-Alexandra Jacobs