I sing the body electric. . . .

It snowed some last night. Less than an inch.

Michigan winter's strange. The best skiing months on our short Michigan runs are February and March. Over the years, I've come to think of February as the true beginning of Michigan winter. Mostly doesn't snow until mid-January. Or if it does, it melts down to a mass of crumbly-crystals not much good under skis.

The past two weeks've brought us three or four less-than-an-inch snows. I've always thought it has to do with living on the rim of Saginaw Bay -- the finger of water that separates the thumb from the rest of the Michigan mitten. My theory -- for what it may be worth -- is that the large bay stores enough heat to extend our fall season. Until the bay freezes, it moderates the low pressure areas that sweep in from the west.

This is the first time this past two weeks the small bursts of flurries have hit my paving and stuck. Until today, mid-day temperatures in the low thirties have melted the small over-night deposits, leaving the pavement wet. Each morning after predicted flurries, I'd get up early, look out the window and think: I'll eat a leisurely breakfast, drink a cup or two of coffee, browse through my email, and MAYBE do some shoveling. By 10:30ish, the snow had vanished, leaving only a damp glimmer of sunlight on the pavement.

But not today. At barely 10 degrees, the thin-skin of snow lay there waiting for me.

It wasn't as if the snow needed shoveling today. The truth is: I needed to shovel. I needed the exertion for the same reason I need to yoga every day, the same reason I work-out every other day and walk the roads. I need to test my body. I need to feel myself as a functioning physical being.

And it's from way back in the very beginning of my youth that I began to feel what Walt Whitman meant with his words I sing the body electric. There truly is something beautiful and magical, something inspirational and electrifying about the fully-functioning human body. I experienced that sense of my-body-myself as a runner.

It's the old habit developed in my youth: the daily testing of my body, the need to feel my muscles sliding beneath my hide. I stretch gently, all the while reassuring my cranky joints: Stop complaining! You'll be feelin' lose&warm soon enough. . . . And sure enough, they soon do begin to do as I ask -- leaving me reassured that my body's still my own, that for awhile yet it will still respond favorably to my wishes.

I think of vigorous exercise as a gift I give my body. At the same time, I experience my functioning body as a gift I somehow give myself. I don't know exactly how to make these two notions clear. But I'll try.

Most of my life I've been a road-runner. I started running when I was twelve. Running became a compulsion by the time I entered high school. That was before really good running shoes. In those days, I ran in what we called warm-up shoes. They were made of rubber and stiff canvas, and were trim, low-cut, and light, much like the leather spikes we wore in races during track season. They were easy to clean. You could throw them into a washer and set them to dry in the sun.

Good weather, three seasons of the year I'd run in nothing more than running shoes, a supporter, shorts, and a t-shirt -- or an old sweatshirt with the arms cut off. I tied one of those big blue or red bandannas around my head to keep the sweat wicked-off and out of my eyes.

I'd run the sidewalk east ten or twelve blocks out into the country, turn south and link up with a rolling, paved, two-lane highway we called the nine-mile stretch. It led straight south to Lowell (Indiana), a small town. I'd run to a fountain in Lowell's downtown, take a drink, then turn around and run back. I judged that a 20 mile run.

But often as not, I didn't run that whole circuit. Weather and time determined when I'd turn around on that long route. But I rarely ran less than an hour out, an hour back, and very often I ran two hours out and two hours back. That seemed like a long run when I was a high-school boy.

In those days, Boys Cross-Country was a two-mile run, usually on a golf-course circuit. Road-running was rare -- at least where I grew up. Partly I began running to condition myself for football. Partly I ran because I was by nature a loner. Mostly I ran because I loved the sheer animal delight I felt when I ran.

I wasn't jogging. I was running lightly, my eyes fixed on the ground in front of me, driving off the balls of my feet, reaching out, placing each foot carefully, sensing the power of my young body in each stride, feeling and picturing my muscles slide beneath my skin. I ran right on the edge of my endurance, sometimes alternating long sprints and short walks. Always testing. Pushing myself along. Delighting in the growing strength of my body. Feeling whole and connected, body-to-mind; feeling the whole of myself connected to the ground beneath me. I loved the sheer joy of exertion, of meeting the challenge, maintaining the pace. Exultant! That's the word.

I think it must've been when I was in high-school Senior English
that I met Emily Dickinson: "I like to see it lap the miles/And lick
the valleys up." That's how running felt, the joyful challenge of it.
She described a railroad locomotive in terms I understood as a
road-runner. The challenge and joy of lapping up the miles. Right
down to the final couplet: "Stop -- docile and omnipotent/At
its own stable door."

If you've never run for the sheer joy of it, you probably can't grasp what I mean -- how it feels. Running like that within the full range of one's own capacities is something more than a compulsion. It's striding to the very edge of craziness and delight. Runners know. They need not be world-class. They need only extend to the very edge of their own physical capacities. Or maybe just a little beyond their capacities.

For such people, running is not something one does. Running is something one is. Running is somehow the total experience of being -- at least for the duration of a run.

Today, running is as much a commercial as an individual activity. It's a mark of social distinction, as well. There are runner's clubs and competitive teams. People run to control their weight or otherwise maximize their health. For some, running is a serious enterprise, a study of one -- they keep minute logs of their diet, stretching routines, their accumulated mileage, how their running feels day-to-day. They study and try to improve. Good for them.

By contrast, as a young man I ran for the sheer delight of it. For me, running was fun. Even after my knee injury when I was seventeen, running was fun.

Relentless aging finally destroyed the fun of running, made it hard work -- reduced it to a slow run -- more than a plodding jog. But even that was fun. For years, until I had my knee replaced, Nancy and I would hit the back roads together. She'd ride her bike, and I'd glide along behind her, placing my feet lightly, reaching out. She'd set what she called a talker's pace -- a pace she considered reasonable and good for me. I didn't mind, as long as we moved along rapidly enough to challenge me, leaving me enough lung capacity to carry on a conversation.

What I liked most about those easy-exercise-runs was loping along beside the rear wheel of her bicycle, studying her backside and legs, the taper of her body from waist to shoulders, the sun glistening on her blond hair. Instead of studying myself as an aging athlete, I studied Nancy. She was so beautiful in so many ways. She was an extraordinary person -- with great packaging.

For almost a decade we ran by a modest home where a nice old guy sat peacefully poking himself along in a glider. He'd always smile and wave: "Haint you caught that-there girl yit?"

We'd always smile and wave. Nancy'd wrinkle her nose, glancing back over her shoulder at me: "Yeah! He catches me. Not as often as he once did, though."

Old-Guy'd slap his knee in delight: "Better hurry along there, young-fellar. Afore yer age gits ya."

One day the glider was empty. We never saw him again. But we never passed that glider without Nancy turning to me and saying: "Better hurry along there, young-feller. . . ."

As I write this, I speculate: Could be I'm older now, than he was then.

Makes me wonder what I'd do if I actually caught a woman one of these days:

Might be she'd be happy
just helping me shovel snow.
Then again:
might be I'd surprise her.