“I had started fell running in my late 20s and so would enter mountain marathon races each year with friends, which were inevitably held in wild rocky territory in the Lake District, North Wales or the Highlands. The experience of running down mountains when you are young and fit is nothing short of exquisite. At times, it would feel like flying, as my legs just seemed to skim the surface of the mountain as we floated down it at speed in a kind of meditative dream.”
– John Peck, Restless
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“The field was tough and springy; my feet went down, went forward, and came back under me. I was not afraid of holes. I felt very light and a little better than usual, even. When I was a boy, in the summer, and the snow melted off the lower part of the Range below our cabin, I used to go down to where there was a field – a field that was like a road, though nobody had made it or used it and run, the first day I got the snowshoes off my feet. I was so used to them that it was hard to believe I wasn’t still lifting them step by step, and slowed way down from even normal walking. But after the thaw I’d go down and run with just my feet, and the whole land the flat and the mountains to one side, and everything I could see – speeded up, and I really took off. I felt like I was the fastest thing in the world, the fastest moving, the fastest thinking, the most free human there was.”
– James Dickey, To The White Sea
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We are connected to the animal kingdom when we move in nature.
We can experience the world as a bird in flight, a cat in pursuit or a human unchained.
A sense of freedom, that we can carry around with us.
Physical memories do not diminish at the same rate as emotional memories.
Taste and smell are physical memories that are notorious for propelling us into the past.
Our bodies remember those moments of adventure where we flowed across the landscape.
At rest, we can be like the dreaming dog: twitching in remembered strides.
A dog will wake from its dream in full expectation of its quotidian movement.
But we humans can suppress that need.
For how long has it been since I took flight?
Conversations With Quotations 