5.

Transportation

Today I might have run faster than I have ever run before, at least for a sustained amount of time. I ran on the rillito trial for fifty minutes without stopping and I was really running the entire time—like something was chasing me, that kind of running. I’m a shuffler, have been for years, but this afternoon I was really running.

When I was rejected from all of the running events in high school track and relegated to shot put and disc, I would watch Lisa Baker from afar. She was so tall and thin and effortlessly fast. My every movement was pained, but Lisa Baker didn’t even break a sweat. I have been running for years, consistently for a decade, and I have never stopped feeling bad about myself, the Lisa Bakers always in the back of my mind. But today I felt so good about my run that I actually threw my head back and yelled, twice, in my car as I drove home. It was weird.

As I was running, I started thinking about song teleportation. I was listening to a mixed CD I made to cheer myself up when Abe Froman got pneumonia. On the long drives to the Orange Grove Animal Clinic, I would listen to the CD (which I named “This is Me Going for Peppy”) to make myself feel better. The entire CD reminds me of the Abe trauma, but there is one song that always, no matter where I am or how many times I’ve heard it, takes me back to a really specific moment in my life.

The second I hear the Be Good Tanyas’ “Littlest Birds,” I am in my old apartment in Barrington, New Hampshire. It’s when I was between futons, so my front room only had the borrowed papasan and the big chair I found on the side of the road. It's just me and Abe at that point and he's out running around. I’ve put on my fuzzy socks and I’m dancing to the song, sliding on the hardwood floors and weaving around the chairs. Abe is alarmed by my dancing and (this is before all of the dental issues) he expresses his concern by launching himself at my feet, trying to chew on my toes. Without fail, every time I hear “Littlest Birds” I go to exactly that moment—dimly lit third story apartment, hardwood floors, Abe attacking my feet.

The best part is that after the dancing I inevitably go straight to the memory of Ab and Beej showing up on my doorstep with a brand new futon. I open the door and there they are, winded from lugging furniture up steep steps. One of many profound moments of home with them.