When I lost my relationship of more than 28 years, I also lost the extraordinary complicity of shared memories that is built over that much time. The way a we can hear three notes of a song and be transported into nine different times when they listened to that melody together. The way a we can walk by a restaurant that’s been six different restaurants and remember the first time they ate their together and all the meals in all its different iterations. The way a roadside rest stop can conjure a decade of drives to Vermont.
I am still too often surprised by a wave of grief, which washes through after an experience that hearkens back to a past that no longer exists in the same way, even as a memory. My ongoing divorce has not only radically changed how I live now; it has shattered the lens through which I look at my past, too. Joyful memories, comfortable memories, loving memories—they are all cast into doubt. Spoiled. Was what I lived real? And if it was, how did I lose my life?
Starting a few weeks ago, I have literally been running up against one such file folder of memories. In late August, I decided to run up to The Cloisters Museum and Fort Tryon Park in New York. From my old apartment, it was a 14-mile run, there and back. I’ve moved further north, and further east, so I wasn’t sure how much shorter the run would be. 3 miles shorter, it turns out. Which is just right for what I want to run now. I’ve done the run three times now, and I hope to do it again this week. Just because, I can. After everything (divorce, diagnosis and more), to feel alive and be able to run this route is joyous and comforting. Not only for the physical accomplishment, also for the view of the Palisades cliffs in New Jersey across the river and being on the grounds of the museum that was always my paternal grandparents’ first stop on their semi-annual road trip to New York from Regina, Saskatchewan. My grandmother had a particular love of the unicorn tapestries. Which is why it was also one of the last places I visited in New York with my father before he died, so that we could stand where his mother had stood so many times and feel her spirit. I don’t know if my father knew that his health was failing that day. He had a small growth on his face that he’d been ignoring, which turned out to be melanoma.
The first time I ran to the Cloisters was 30 years ago. There was no beautiful bike path up the west side to the little red lighthouse beneath the George Washington Bridge and what path there was by the river was sketchy and not something I’d run alone. The first time, I ran it with my ex and two other running friends, who have long since moved away. I’ve run it with many different friends over the years. At least once with one of my brothers on a crazy windy day. It’s a great tourist (who is also a runner) outing. And, of course, I ran it with my ex. Many times.
Until 2022, when my marriage started to fall apart, I had done that run every year, often many times (especially during marathon training). I didn’t do the run in 2022, nor in 2023. That was when I started to feel tired. So tired that that kind of distance moved out of reach. Deciding to do the run again, even if a shorter version, was a declaration of renewal.
I can still do this. Even if I’m alone and every step contains a memory. The super steep climb out of Riverside Park. The water fountain in Fort Tryon at the turnaround. The hill one of those OG running friends named, Where the Fuck Did This Come From? Because we’d run steadily up to get to the cloisters. So how was it possible that on our way back down, a few blocks east of where we’d climbed, we were running up yet another hill, which seemed impossible, geologically. Such is the variation in terrain a few blocks apart in Manhattan. And, as if to further taunt us, at the bottom of the hill named Where the Fuck Did This Come From? is a pharmacy called Hilltop Pharmacy. I never pass that corner without a bubble of inner bemusement. I wanted to share that bubble with you, here. To help build new neural pathways into my memories.
As I run, I am filled with a strong brew of melancholy and joy. Each time I trace this route, I carry with me all the iterations and all my companions. And I imagine my grandmother, walking in Fort Tryon Park, stretching her legs after a day of driving, thinking about that dying unicorn. And I remember walking the park paths with my parents. I contain my ancestors and all the girls and women I have been. I revel in the joy of being gifted another opportunity to make my way up to the cloisters on my own two legs.