Dispatches from the middle

Day 20: My sister and I went back to our high school today to do a workout on the track. Racing down the backstretch as the sun began to set on a perfect late-summer’s day, I marveled at how many memories can get stuck in the fabric of a place. It’s completely saturated, this track. Each section, each corner, each spot on the infield, everything has a memory associated with it – pacing out exchange zones, napping in between races, realizing at the end of a day just how bad the sunburn is, totally sucking at high jump. It even smells the same – sunbaked rubber. There’s something both comfortable and comforting about places so thick with memory. The alleyway behind the house I grew up in, my aunt and uncle’s farm, and my high school’s track. This sort of intimacy is a precious thing.