Written By Ellen M. Lambert
An exercise in reflection.
It was a crystal-clear, breezy fall day when I stepped onto the abandoned track. The sun was shining in a cerulean blue sky, and on this middle-of-the week, stolen morning, I had the place to myself. I looked forward to doing my daily two miles on the smooth, lined surface. It’s a whole different experience from walking up and down the streets of my neighborhood. When you walk on a continuous oval, you don’t have to pay much attention to where you are or where you are going, so you can really lose yourself to your thoughts. It was a treat.
It had been a long time since I walked around a track—more than 10 years, in fact. The last time was at an American Cancer Society Relay For Life, a 12-hour-long, overnight walk-a-thon designed to take participants out of their regular routines. One Friday night into Saturday morning to pause and think—to think for 12 hours straight about the cause, the survivors and those who didn’t survive.
All of the citizens and businesses in the community turned out. Not hard to do in a two-stoplight town in the Piney Woods of East Texas. The event was held at a local high school field, and teams were encouraged to set up camp. There were tents, blankets, picnic tables and assorted spur-of-the-moment setups. There were the experienced, super-organized teams in matching T-shirts of fuchsia and white. Just as many of our ilk were represented, too, in makeshift groups of walkers and wannabes.
My team consisted of maybe a dozen do-gooders. None of us could be mistaken for athletes; most of us were smokers at the time. We goaded each other into putting aside our vices for one night and participating. It was a worthy cause—all of us had lost at least one person to the disease, and all of us knew someone fighting it.
The night was humid and hot, and I wasn’t in as good of shape as I am now. As I finished each lap or passed by near where my co-walkers were set up, they would often comment on how beet-red my face was. I also remember with crystal clarity the woman who seemed to walk all night.
Collectively our team logged a lot of miles, but our individual contributions were just a few per person. We’d take turns, switching out every so often to make sure the walkers didn’t get too tired and the watchers didn’t get too bored. Whether I was walking or watching, I noticed this one woman going lap after lap after lap, never resting or stopping. Sometimes she jogged, sometimes she walked, sometimes she sprinted. Lap after lap. No. 137.
This was not her first relay, to be sure. She was too comfortable. She sported the kind of gear only “serious” walkers wear. She had the requisite water bottle, fanny pack, headband, tank top and shorts made from the material that breathes. She wasn’t the least bit red in the face. Positively serene. The only thing I thought she might be missing was a set of headphones. How monotonous to walk all those laps without some diversion. If I were her, I would have had my iPod—although I believe it would have been a Walkman back then.
Man, I thought. I bet she can eat whatever she wants. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on her. She was tall, lithe, graceful. The ballet dancer type. Accustomed to exercise.
Bleh. I wanted a cigarette.
On one of my laps I caught up with her, panting. Between gasps I asked her how many laps she’d done. She reached in her pocket, felt around and said, “thirty-one.” I had to know how she could possibly keep track of her laps when it was so easy for me to lose count.
“I start out with 43 pinto beans in my left pocket,” she said. “After every lap I move a bean to my right pocket. When I run out of beans I walk one more lap, and I’m done.”
She went on to explain she was walking for her husband. She had lost him to cancer when he was 43, and every year she walked in memory of him. She didn’t say how many years she had been walking.
I couldn’t think of anything to say in response. So we walked, she and I, quietly, side by side, bean by bean, for about an hour. Then she stopped, smiled at me and thanked me for walking with her. She said she needed to finish up and started jogging away. When she was halfway around the track, directly opposite from me, she smiled broadly, waved and began running.
She wasn’t around the next morning when they handed out the awards. She had won the award for most laps walked—44. They had a handsome trophy to give her, No. 137. Not that she would have wanted it. She wouldn’t want the attention or the trophy. She wasn’t walking for recognition.
Ten years later, as I finished my laps, I thought how grateful I was to be walking at all. I was thankful that I could move easily now, probably not even red in the face. But I was still nowhere near as graceful as she had been. Funny how we never know when we’re being watched, when we inspire others, or how we’ll be remembered. That night so long ago I’d learned about love, commitment and pinto beans. As I stepped off the track, I gave a quick salute to the one who taught me.