Sirens

Today I gratefully acknowledge that my husband stayed home with Sienna so that I could get in my same running practice I have been doing throughout the spring and summer. It felt weird to go and park up by her preschool without her, but you just can't duplicate running along the bluffs or those killer Santa Monica stairs.

I was stairstepping right behind a LAFD fireman. I had just had this conversation yesterday with a group of ladies at a women's luncheon.

"Do you ever see the firemen working out on the stairs?"

"Oh yeah, all the time." I said.

"Really," someone else said, her eyes widening at the prospect.

"Yeah. They're there on certain days at certain times," another single woman pointed out, proud to be in the know.

"Well, I see them all the time when I go in the mornings," I offered.

The whole time up and down the stairs, Mr. Fireman was calmly stepping, one stair at a time to my 2s, barely breaking a sweat, his radio squawking.

"This is 101…to 106…we got a blah, blah, blah…"

It was greek to me. I tuned it out. He must not be on duty if he's on the stairs.

"This is…blah, blah…respond to…respiratory distress…"

Hey, difficulty breathing. Yeah, me too, I chuckled to myself as I huffed up higher, right behind him.

I later heard "…we got a hemorrhage…"

We got a bleeder, folks. Bleeding out, I thought to myself...picturing vivid scenarios in my head.

At the top of the 2nd set, I turned off to go back to the concrete steps a bit west of there and do a round of those stairs. Halfway down, I hear a blast of sirens, one unit, two units, 3 units, everyone was called. I'm sure my fireman was too. Was he tired and sweaty?

I wonder what the call was this time?

As I reached the top of the stairs, I saw a clump of trainers around a gazelle who said she had a calf strain and had to take it slow. She was long and lean, easily 6 foot tall. All legs that tapered down to skinny ankles. The kind of body that can wear nothing but a midriff sports bra, lycra shorts, and be stunning. Jeez, she was beautiful. Her pro-sports body a work of art. I later saw her trying to jog a bit along the bluffs, but her injury prevented much of a run.

It occurred to me that no matter what body we have, what our bodies have been through, whether abused, battered, broken, dysfunctional, we HAVE a body. We have a shot….at life. We have the present. The gift AND the moment.

What are we going to do with it?

With that awareness, I was filled with gratitude for my chunky body, plodding along, not as gracefully as the gazelle but with as much or more strength and determination.

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